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ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



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ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS 



John Greenleaf Whittier 



BY 



THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON 



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Nrfrr gorfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
I902 

All rights reserved 



THE LIBRARY- OF 
CONGRESS, 

T*o Copied fttosivED 

NOV. 7 1902 

CLASsCX'XXa No. 
COPY B. 



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Copyright, 1902, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped October, 1902. 



Norfajoofc 13rfss 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 

Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



NOTE 

The thanks of the author are due to various friends 
and correspondents who have aided him with informa- 
tion or criticism ; and especially to his friend Samuel 
T. Pickard, Esq., the authorized biographer of Whit- 
tier, whose invaluable work must always hold the 
leading place among all books relating to the poet's 
personal history, and who has also been most gen- 
erous in the way of private counsel* 

T. W. H. 

Cambridge, Mass. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Childhood 1 



CHAPTER II 
School Days and Early Ventures .... 21 

CHAPTER III 
Whittier the Politician 40 

CHAPTER IV 
Enlistment for Life 48 

CHAPTER V 
The School of Mobs .56 

CHAPTER VI 
A Division in the Ranks 66 

CHAPTER VII 
Whittier as a Social Reformer .... 80 

CHAPTER VIII 

Personal Qualities 94 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IX 

PAGE 

Whittier at Home 100 

CHAPTER X 
The Religious Side 115 

CHAPTER XI 
Early Loves and Love Poetry ...... 135 

CHAPTER XII 
Whittier the Poet ....... 150 

CHAPTER XIII 
Closing Years .171 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



CHAPTER I 

CHILDHOOD 

The American traveller in England who takes pains 
to inquire in bookstores as to the comparative stand- 
ing of his country's poets among English readers, 
is likely to hear Longfellow ranked at the head, with 
Whittier as a close second. In the same way, if he 
happens to attend English conventions and popular 
meetings, he will be pretty sure to hear these two 
authors quoted oftener than any other poets, British 
or American. This parallelism in their fame makes 
it the more interesting to remember that Whittier 
was born within five miles of the old Longfellow 
homestead, where the grandfather of his brother poet 
was born. Always friends, though never intimate, 
they represented through life two quite different 
modes of rearing and education. Longfellow was the 
most widely travelled author of the Boston circle, 
Whittier the least so; Longfellow spoke a variety 
of languages, Whittier only his own ; Longfellow had 
whatever the American college of his time could give 
him, Whittier had none of it; Longfellow had the 
habits of a man of the world, Whittier those of a 
recluse ; Longfellow touched reform but lightly, Whit- 

B 1 



2 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

tier was essentially imbued with it ; Longfellow had 
children and grandchildren, while Whittier led a single 
life. Yet in certain gifts, apart from poetic quality, 
they were alike ; both being modest, serene, unselfish, 
brave, industrious, and generous. They either shared, 
or made up between them, the highest and most 
estimable qualities that mark poet or man. 

Whittier, like Garrison, — who first appreciated his 
poems, — was brought up apart from what Dr. Holmes 
loved to call the Brahmin class in America; those, 
namely, who were bred to cultivation by cultivated 
parents. Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, were 
essentially of this class; all their immediate ances- 
tors were, in French phrase, gens de robe; three of 
them being children of clergymen, and one of a lawyer 
who was also a member of Congress. All of them 
had in a degree — to borrow another phrase from 
Holmes — tumbled about in libraries. Whittier had, 
on the other hand, the early training of -a spiritual 
aristocracy, the Society of Friends. He was bred in 
a class which its very oppressors had helped to en- 
noble ; in the only meetings where silence ranked as 
equal with speech, and women with men; where no 
precedence was accorded to anything except years 
and saintliness; where no fear was felt but of sin. 
This gave him at once the companionship of the 
humble and a habit of deference to those whom he 
felt above him; he had measured men from a level 
and touched human nature directly in its own vigour 
and yet in its highest phase. Not one of this eminent 
circle had the keys of common life so absolutely in 
his hands as Whittier. Had anything been wanting 
in this respect, his interest in politics would have 



i.] CHILDHOOD 3 

• 
filled the gap. "First thrilled by the wrongs of the 
slave, and serving in that cause a long apprenticeship, 
it was instinctive in him to be the advocate of peace, 
of woman suffrage, of organised labour. In such out- 
works of reform he had an attitude, a training, and 
a sympathy which his literary friends had not. He 
was, in the English phrase, "a poet of the people," 
and proved by experience that even America supplied 
such a function. Not in vain had he studied the 
essential dignity of the early New England aristoc- 
racy, as he traced the lineage of his heroine, Amy 
Wentworth, and paced with her the streets of Ports- 
mouth, N.H., a region less wholly Puritan than Mass- 
achusetts : — 

" Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, 
With stately stairways worn 
With feet of old Colonial knights 
And ladies gentle-born. 

" And on her, from the wainscot old, 
Ancestral faces frown, — 
And this has worn the soldier's sword, 
And that the judge's gown." 

All this type of life he had studied in New England 
history, — none better, — but what real awe did it 
impose on him who had learned at his mother's knee 
to seek the wilderness with William Penn or to ride 
through the howling mobs with Barclay of Ury ? 
The Quaker tradition, after all, had a Brahminism 
of its own which Beacon Street in Boston could not 
rear or Harvard College teach. To this special privi- 
lege John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill, 
Mass., on Dec. 17, 1807. 



4 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

The founder of the name and family of Whittier in 
this country, Thomas Whittier, was one of that type 
of ancestors to which every true American looks back 
with pride, if he can. Of Huguenot descent, but Eng- 
lish training, he sailed from Southampton in 1638, and 
settled in what was then Salisbury, but is now Ames- 
bury, on Powow Eiver — the poet's " swift Powow " — a 
tributary of the Merrimac. He was then eighteen, and 
was a youth weighing three hundred pounds and of cor- 
responding muscular strength. Later, he removed to 
Haverhill, about ten miles away, and built a log house 
near what is now called "the Whittier homestead." 
Here he dwelt with his wife, a distant kinswoman, 
whose maiden name was Euth Flint, and who had come 
over with him on the packet ship. They had ten chil- 
dren, five of whom were boys, each of these being over 
six feet in height. Then he naturally built for his 
increasing family a larger house, "the homestead," 
which is still standing, and in which some of his de- 
scendants yet live. He was a leading citizen of Haver- 
hill, which was for the greater *part of a century a 
frontier village, subject to frequent incursions from 
the Indians, one of these resulting in the well-known 
tragedy of Hannah Dustin. From these raids Thomas 
Whittier never suffered, though he was one of the 
town committee to provide fortified houses for places 
of refuge in case of danger. That he never even bolted 
his own doors at night is the tradition of the family. 

This tradition suggests the ways and purposes of the 
Society of Friends, but it does not appear that Thomas 
Whittier actually belonged to that body, though he 
risked name and standing to secure fair treatment for 
those who led it. Mr. Pickard, the poet's biographer, 



i.] CHILDHOOD 5 

tells us that in 1652 he joined in petitioning the legis- 
lature, then called " general court," for the pardon of 
Robert Pike, who had been heavily fined for speaking 
against the order prohibiting certain Quakers from ex- 
horting " on the Lord's Day/' even in their own houses. 
Not only was this petition not granted, but the peti- 
tioners were threatened with loss of rights as " freemen" 
unless they withdrew their names. Sixteen refused to 
withdraw them, of whom two, Thomas Whittier and 
Christopher Hussey, were ancestors of the poet, as 
was one of the prohibited exhorters, Joseph Peasley. 
These were temporarily disfranchised, but the name of 
Thomas Whittier often appears with honour in the town 
records, even to mentioning the fact that when he came 
to dwell in Haverhill he brought with him a hive of 
bees which had been willed to him by his uncle, Henry 
Eolfe, a fellow passenger to this country. This hive 
of bees, as an emblem of industry and thrift, has been 
used by some- of his descendants as the basis of a mono- 
gram. 1 

In the house thus Honourably occupied by a manly 
progenitor, John Greenleaf Whittier was born, his 
middle name coming from his paternal grandmother, 
Sarah Greenleaf, about whom he wrote a ballad, and 
about whose name — translated, as is supposed, from 
the French Peuillevert — he has written the poem, " A 
Name." He was also descended through his maternal 
grandmother from Christopher Hussey, who had mar- 
ried a daughter of the Eev. Stephen Bachiler, a man 
of distinguished appearance and character, whose repu- 
tation was clouded for two centuries by charges made 
in his own day, but which now seem to have been dis- 
i Pickard's "Whittier," I. 5. 



6 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

pelled by his descendants. 1 Father Bachiler's striking 
appearance, dark, thin, and straight, black eyebrows, 
descended to the two men most conspicuous among 
his posterity, John Greenleaf Whittier and Daniel 
Webster. 

The homestead in which "Whittier was reared is to 
this day so sheltered from the world that no neighbour's 
roof has ever been in sight from it ; and Whittier says 
of it in " Snow-Bound " 

"No church-bell lent its Christian tone 
To the savage air ; no social smoke 
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak." 

In a prose paper by him, moreover, "The Fish I Didn't 
Catch," published originally in the Little Pilgrim, in 
Philadelphia, in 1843, there is a sketch of the home of 
his youth, as suggestive of a rustic boyhood as if it 
had been made in Scotland. It opens as follows : — 

" Our old homestead (the house was very old for a new 
country, having been built about the time that the Prince 
of Orange drove out James the Second) nestled under a long 
range of hills which stretched off to the west. It was sur- 
rounded by woods in all directions save to the southeast, 
where a break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of low, green 
meadows, picturesque with wooded islands and jutting capes 
of upland. Through these, a small brook, noisy enough as 
it foamed, rippled, and laughed down its rocky falls by our 
garden-side, wound, silently and scarcely visible, to a still 
larger stream, known as the Country Brook. This brook 
in its turn, after doing duty at two or three saw and grist 
mills, the clack of which we could hear across the interven- 
ing woodlands, found its way to the great river, and the 
river took it up and bore it down to the great sea. 

1 See the imputations in Winthrop's Journal, and the final vindi- 
cation in a paper by Charles E. Batchelder in iV. E. Historical and 
Genealogical Register, January, 1892. 



i.] CHILDHOOD 7 

"I have not much reason for speaking well of these 
meadows, or rather bogs, for they were wet most of the 
year ; but in the early days they were highly prized by the 
settlers, as they furnished natural mowing before the up- 
lands could be cleared of wood and stones and laid down to 
grass. There is a tradition that the hay-harvesters of two 
adjoining towns quarrelled about a boundary question, and 
fought a hard battle one summer morning in that old time, 
not altogether bloodless, but by no means as fatal as the 
fight between the rival Highland clans, described by Scott 
in ' The Fair Maid of Perth.' I used to wonder at their 
folly, when I was stumbling over the rough hassocks, and 
sinking knee-deep in the black mire, raking the sharp sickle- 
edged grass which we used to feed out to the young cattle 
in midwinter, when the bitter cold gave them appetite for 
even such fodder. . . . 

" Nevertheless, the meadows had their redeeming points. 
In spring mornings the blackbirds and bobolinks made them 
musical with songs ; and in the evenings great bullfrogs 
croaked and clamoured ; and on summer nights we loved to 
watch the white wreaths of fog rising and drifting in the 
moonlight like troops of ghosts, with the fireflies throwing 
up ever and anon signals of their coming. But the Brook 
was far more attractive, for it had sheltered bathing-places, 
clear and white-sanded, and weedy stretches, where the shy 
pickerel loved to linger, and deep pools where the stupid 
sucker stirred the black mud with his fins. I had followed 
it all the way from its birthplace among the pleasant New 
Hampshire hills, through the sunshine of broad, open mead- 
ows, and under the shadow of thick woods. . . . Macaulay 
has sung, — 

" * That year young lads in Umbro 
Shall plunge the struggling sheep ; ' 

and this picture of the Koman sheep-washing recalled, when 
we read it, similar scenes in the Country Brook." 1 

The house still stands in which Whittier thus dwelt. 
It has an oaken frame, composed of timber fifteen inches 
i Whittier's " Works," V. 320-22. 



8 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

square; it is about thirty-six feet 4 long, and is built 
around a central chimney. The kitchen, which is the 
chief room, is thirty feet long, and the fireplace is 
eight between the jambs. The latest houses built by 
wealth in the rural parts of New England are essen- 
tially modelled as to their large rooms from these old 
colonial houses. The enormous labour required in tem- 
pering the cold in these elder dwellings — for warmed 
throughout they never were — cannot easily be recog- 
nized in the modern, which rely on the open fireplaces 
only for spring and autumn, and on furnaces for the 
rest. How much more real and genuine seems the 
conflict with frost and snow upon Whittier's hearth. 
He describes, in " Snow-Bound," the building of the 
fire: — 

" We piled, with care, our nightly stack 
Of wood against the chimney -back — 
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 
And on its top the stout back-stick ; 
The knotty fore-stick laid apart, 
And filled between with curious art 
The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, 
We watched the first red blaze appear, 
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
Until the old, rude-furnished room 
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom ; 
While radiant with a mimic flame 
Outside the sparkling drift became, 
And through the bare-boughed lilac tree 
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 
The crane and pendent trammels showed, 
The Turk's heads on the andirons glowed ; 
While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
The meaning of the miracle, 



I.] CHILDHOOD 9 

Whispered the old rhyme, * Under the tree, 
When fire outdoors burns merrily, 
There the witches are making tea.' " 

He next paints for us the group around the fireside : — 

" Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean- winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed ; 
The house-dog on his paws outspread 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
And, for the winter fireside meet, 
Between the andirons' straggling feet, 
The mug of cider simmered slow, 
The apples sputtered in a row, 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood." 

Here we have, absolutely photographed, the Puritan 
Colonial interior, as it existed till within the very 
memory of old men still liying. No other book, no 
other picture preserves it to us ; all other books, all 
other pictures combined, leave us still ignorant of the 
atmosphere which this one page re-creates for us ; it is 
more imperishable than any interior painted by Gerard 
Douw. And this picture we owe to a lonely invalid, 
who painted it in memory of his last household com- 
panions, his mother and his sister. 



10 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

It must be remembered that, in the poet's childhood, 
the yearly meetings of the Society of Friends at Ames- 
bury were relatively large, and the name of that kindly 
denomination was well fulfilled by the habit of receiv- 
ing friends from a distance. They came in their own 
conveyances to Amesbury or its adjoining settlement, 
Haverhill, and remained for days in succession, the 
Whittier home entertaining sometimes as many as ten 
or fifteen. In such a household Whittier grew up, 
listening not without occasional criticism to his far 
ther's first-day readings from the Scriptures ; visiting 
with his parents the Quarterly Meeting in Salem, 
passing a leafless tree, pointed out to him as that on 
which the witches were hung, and seeing on another 
drive the bridge where the drawtender had died in 
accordance with a previous ghostly warning. Or else 
he followed by the fireside his Aunt Mercy's mystic 
tales, when she narrated the appearance of her lover's 
spectre, riding on horseback, but moving away with- 
out sound of hoofs, and afterward proving to have 
died at the very day and hour of her vision. Or his 
father told tales of early trading expeditions to Can- 
ada, through the Indian-haunted woods. 

" Our father rode again his ride 
On Memphremagog's wooded side ; 
Sat down again to moose and samp 
In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; 
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
Beneath St. Francois' hemlock trees ; 
Again for him the moonlight shone 
On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; 
Again he heard the violin play 
Which led the village dance away, 
And mingled in its merry whirl 



i.] CHILDHOOD 11 

The grandam and the laughing girl. 
Or, nearer home, our steps he led 
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 

Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; 
Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 

The low green prairies of the sea." 

His mother, in her turn, pointed out the glimmering 
reflection of the firelight in the small, thick panes of 
window glass, and taught him the old rhyme about the 
witches making tea there, or told him of a point in 
the Country Brook, where there was a tradition of a 
witch meeting, consisting of six little old women in sky 
blue cloaks ; or of a bridge where a teamster had once 
seen a ghost bobbing for eels, or other tales best 
recorded in the poet's own simple verse. 

" Our mother, while she turned her wheel, 
Or ran the new-knit stocking-heel, 
Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Cochecho town, 
And how her own great-uncle bore 
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore ; 
Eecalling, in her fitting phrase, 
So rich and picturesque and free, 
(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways) 
The story of her early days. 
She made us welcome to her home ; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring book, 
The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country side ; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 



12 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

The loon's weird laughter far away ; 
We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down ; 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 
The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, 
And heard the wild geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 
Then, haply with a look more grave 
And soberer tone, some tale she gave 
From painful Se well's ancient tome, 
Beloved in every Quaker home, 
Of faith fire- winged by martyrdom, 
Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — 
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — " 

Or his uncle told of the "lore of fields and brooks." 

" Himself to Nature's heart so near 
That all her voices in his ear 
Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 
Like Apollonius of old, 
Who knew the tales the sparrows told, 
Or Hermes who interpreted 
What the sage cranes of Nilus said ; 
A simple, guileless, childlike man, 
Content to live where life began ; 
Strong only on his native grounds, 
The little world of sights and sounds 
Whose girdle was the parish bounds. 

****** 

He told how teal and loon he shot, 
And how the eagle's eggs he got, 
The feats on pond and river done, 
The prodigies of rod and gun ; 
Till, warming with the tales he told, 
Forgotten was the outside cold, 



i.] CHILDHOOD 13 

The bitter wind unheeded blew, 

From ripened corn the pigeons flew, 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 

Went fishing down the river-brink ; 

In fields with bean or clover gay 

The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, 

Peered from the doorway of his cell. 

The musk-rat plied the mason's trade, 

And tier by tier his mud- walls laid ; 

And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell." 

Add to these the two young sisters ; the village 
schoolmaster with his love of boobs and wandering ; and 
add that strange, half-crazed guest, Harriet Livermore, 
who had been for a time a convert to the doctrines of 
Friends until she quarrelled with her lover on a minor 
point of doctrine and knocked him down with a stick 
of wood. She then became a preacher of the Second 
Advent, and travelled for years in Europe to proclaim 
its doctrines. Lastly, we must add such occasional 
guests as Whittier himself describes in this narra- 
tive : — 

" On one occasion, on my return from the field at evening, 
I was told that a foreigner had asked for lodging during the 
night, but that, influenced by his dark, repulsive appear- 
ance, my mother had very reluctantly refused his request. 
I found her by no means satisfied with her decision. ' What 
if a son of mine was in a strange land 1 ' she inquired, self- 
reproachfully. Greatly to her relief, I volunteered to go in 
pursuit of the wanderer, and, taking a cross path over the 
fields, soon overtook him. He had just been rejected at the 
house of our nearest neighbour ; and was standing in a state 
of dubious perplexity in the street. His looks quite justi- 
fied my mother's suspicions. He was an olive-coraplexioned, 
black-bearded Italian, with an eye like a live coal, such a 



14 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

face as perchance looks out on the traveller in the passes of 
the Abruzzi, one of those bandit visages which Salvator has 
painted. With some difficulty I gave him to understand my 
errand, when he overwhelmed me with thanks, and joyfully 
followed me back. He took his seat with us at the supper- 
table; and, when we were all gathered round the hearth 
that cold autumnal evening, he told us, partly by words, and 
partly by gestures, the story of his life and misfortunes : 
amused us with descriptions of the grape-gatherings and fes- 
tivals of his sunny clime ; edified my mother with a recipe 
for making bread of chestnuts ; and in the morning, when 
after breakfast his dark sullen face lighted up, and his fierce 
eyes moistened with grateful emotion as in his own silvery 
Tuscan accent he poured out his thanks, we marvelled at 
the fears which had so nearly closed our doors against him ; 
and, as he departed, we all felt that he had left with us the 
blessing of the poor." 

But what was the boy himself who was nurtured 
by that fireside ? Whittier tells us this also, in his 
other poem, " The Barefoot Boy." 

"Blessings on thee, little man 
Barefoot boy with cheek of tan, 
With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
With thy red lip, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
With the sunshine on Hiy face 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace : 
From my heart I give thee joy, 
I was once a barefoot boy. 



O for boyhood's painless play, 
Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
Knowledge never learned in schools : 



i.] CHILDHOOD 15 

Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
Of the wild flower's time and place, 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood ; 
How the tortoise bears his shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
And the ground-mole sinks his well ; 
How the robin feeds her young, 
How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow, 
Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans ! — 
For, eschewing books and tasks, 
Nature answers all he asks ; 
Hand in hand with her he walks, 
Face to face with her he talks, 
Part and parcel of her joy ; 
Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 



' O for boyhood's time of June, 
Crowding years in one brief moon, 
When all things I heard or saw 
Me, their master, waited for ! 
I was rich in flowers and trees, 
Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 
For my sport the squirrel played, 
Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 
For my taste the blackberry cone 
Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
Laughed the brook for my delight, 
Through the day and through the night 
Whispering at the garden wall, 
Talked with me from fall to fall ; 
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 
Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 



16 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

Mine on bending orchard trees 
Apples of Hesperides I 
Still as my horizon grew 
Larger grew my riches too ; 
All the world I saw or knew 
Seemed a complex Chinese toy, 
Fashioned for a barefoot boy. 

44 for festal dainties spread, 
Like my bowl of milk and bread, 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, 
On the door-stone gray and rude ! 
O'er me, like a regal tent, 
Cloudy-ribbed the sunset bent, 
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, 
Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; 
While for music came the play 
Of the pied frog's orchestra ; 
And to light the noisy choir, 
Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
I was monarch : pomp and joy 
Waited on the barefoot boy." 

Out of doors the boy took his share of the farm 
duties, indeed too great a share, he afterward found, 
for his health. Inheriting the tall figure of his prede- 
cessors, he did not inherit their full strength ; he was 
always engaged, like them, in subduing the wilder- 
ness; he had to face the cold of winter weather in 
what would now be called insufficient clothing ; it was 
before that period had arrived when, in Miss Catherine 
Sedgwick's phrase, the New England Goddess of 
Health held out flannel underclothing to everybody. 
The barn, as Whittier himself afterward testified, had 
no doors : the winter winds whistled through, and snow 
drifted on its floors for more than a century. There 



i.] CHILDHOOD 17 

Whittier milked seven cows ; and tended a horse, two 
oxen, and some sheep. It would seem a healthy and 
invigorating boyhood, yet he was all his life a recog- 
nised invalid, although he lived to be eighty-five, five 
years older than any of his Whittier ancestors, who 
were all recorded as stalwart men. 

These various associations and sources of knowledge 
took the place of books to the boy's mind ; but every 
old-fashioned family of Friends had its own little book-^ 
case, partly theological, yet also largely biographical, 
always carefully read. The Whittier library of thirty 
volumes furnished no exception to this. We have a 
list of the leading works, and it is characteristic of the 
period that these included not only some which were 
distinctly secular, but even some so reprehensible that 
they are now difficult to find, and quite banished from 
orderly households. One of his first attempts in verse 
was a rhymed catalogue of the books in the family 
library — a list which begins as follows : 

" The Bible towering o'er all the rest, 
Of all other books the best. 

" William Perm's laborious writing 
And a book 'gainst Christians fighting. 

" A book concerning John's Baptism, 
Elias Smith's Universalism. 

" How Captain Riley and his crew 
Were on Sahara's desert threw. 

4 ' How Rollins, to obtain the cash, 

Wrote a dull history of trash. 




18 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" The lives of Franklin and of Penn, 
Of Fox and Scott, all worthy men. 

" The life of Burroughs, too, I've read, 
As big a rogue as e'er was made. 

" And Tufts, too, though I will be civil, 
Worse than an incarnate devil. " 

Now the lives of George Burroughs and Henry Tufts 
were the Gil Bias and even the Guzman d'Alfarache 
of the New England readers of a hundred years ago ; 
the former having gone through many editions, while 
the latter — by far the wittier and wickeder of the 
two — was suppressed by the Tufts family, and not 
more than half a dozen copies are known to exist. 
Without it the entire life of the revolutionary period 
cannot be understood, and it helps us to comprehend 
the breadth and toleration of Whittier's nature, and 
especially the sense of humour which relieved it, when 
he gives a characterisation of Burroughs and Tufts 
that shows him to have read their memoirs. 

For other books he borrowed what he could find, 
especially books of tragedy, of which he was always 
fond; and some were read to him by one of his 
teachers, Joshua Coffin, afterward a familiar figure 
for many years to the people of the neighbouring town 
of Newbury, whose town clerk and historian he was — 
a man of substantial figure, large head, cordial manners, 
and one of Garrison's twelve first abolitionists ; a man 
whom I well remember in later years as being all that 
Whittier describes in him. The place where he is 
celebrated is in that delightful poem, "To My Old 
Schoolmaster " beginning 



i.] CHILDHOOD 19 

" Old friend, kind friend ! lightly down 
Drop time's snowflakes on thy crown ! 
Never be thy shadow less, 
Never fail thy cheerfulness ! " x 

Coffin, then a young Dartmouth College student, used 
to read aloud on winter evenings, in the Whittier 
household, the poems of Burns, explaining the Scotch 
dialect ; and finally lent the book to the boy of four- 
teen, who had heard it with delight. At a later time 
one of the Waverley novels came into his hands, prob- 
ably by borrowing, and he and his young sister read it 
on the sly at bedtime, till their candle went out at a 
critical passage. Furthermore, he visited Boston in 
his teens as the guest of Mrs. Nathaniel Greene, one 
of his Batchelder kindred, there buying his first copy 
of Shakespeare, and being offered a ticket to the theatre 
by an accomplished actress, a kindness which he de- 
clined, because he had promised his mother to keep 
away from that fatal peril. 

He summed up his experience of farming and far- 
mers in this letter to the Essex Agricultural Society, 
dated "12th mo. 30, 1888." 

"My ancestors since 1640 have been farmers in Essex 
County. I was early initiated into the mysteries of farming 
as it was practised seventy years ago, and worked faithfully 
on the old Haverhill homestead until, at the age of thirty 
years, I was compelled to leave it, greatly to my regret. 
Ever since, if I have envied anybody, it has been the hale, 
strong farmer, who could till his own acres, and if he needed 
help could afford to hire it, because he was able to lead the 
work himself. I have lived to see a great and favourable 
change in the farming population of Essex County. The 
curse of intemperance is now almost unknown among them ; 

iWhittier's " Works," IV. 73. 



20 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. i. 

the rumseller has no mortgage on their lands. As a rule, 
they are intelligent, well informed, and healthy, interested 
in public affairs, self-respectful and respected, independent 
landholders, fully entitled, if any class is, to the name of 
gentleman. It may be said that they are not millionnaires, 
and that their annual gains are small. But, on the other 
hand, the farmer rests secure while other occupations and 
professions are in constant fear of disaster; his dealing 
directly and honestly with the Almighty is safer than specu- 
lation ; his life is no game of chance, and his investments in 
the earth are better than in stock companies and syndicates. 
As to profits, if our farmers could care less for the comfort 
of themselves and their families, if they could consent to 
live as their ancestors once lived, and as the pioneers in new 
countries now live, they could, with their present facilities, 
no doubt, double their profits at the expense of the delicacies 
and refinements that make life worth living. No better 
proof of real gains can be found than the creation of pleasant 
homes for the comfort of age and the happiness of youth. 
When the great English critic Matthew Arnold was in this 
country, on returning from a visit in Essex County, he 
remarked that while the land looked to him rough and un- 
productive, the landlords' houses seemed neat and often 
elegant. l But where/ he asked, * do the tenants, the 
working people live ? ' He seemed surprised when I told 
him that the tenants were the landlords and the workers 
the owners." 



CHAPTER II 

SCHOOL DAYS ASTD EARLY VENTURES 

The whole story of Whittier's beginnings as a poet 
is like something from an old-fashioned German novel 
of Friendship — for instance, by Jean Paul — it was 
the casual discovery of a gifted boy by another barely 
grown to manhood, this leading to a life-long friend- 
ship, occasionally clouded for a time by decided differ- 
ences of opinion and action. William Lloyd Garrison, 
a young printer's apprentice, just embarked at twenty- 
one on a weekly newspaper in his native town of New- 
buryport, near Haverhill, published in the twelfth 
number some verses entitled " The Exile's Departure " 
and signed " W., Haverhill, June 1, 1826 "; verses to 
which the young editor appended this note, " If ' W.' 
at Haverhill will continue to favour us with pieces as 
beautiful as the one inserted in our poetical depart- 
ment of to-day, we shall esteem it a favour." The 
poem itself, now interesting chiefly as a milestone, is 
as follows : — 

u Fond scenes, which have delighted my youthful existence, 
With feelings of sorrow, I bid ye adieu — 
A lasting adieu ! for now, dim in the distance, 
The shores of Hibernia recede from my view. 
Farewell to the cliffs, tempest-beaten and gray, 

Which guard the loved shores of my own native land ; 
Farewell to the village and sail-shadowed bay, 
The forest-crowned hill and the water- washed strand. 
21 



22 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" I've fought for my country — I've braved all the dangers 

That throng round the path of the warrior in strife ; 
I now must depart to a nation of strangers, 

And pass in seclusion the remnant of life ; 
Far, far from the friends to my bosom most dear, 

With none to support me in peril and pain, 
And none but the stranger to drop the sad tear 

On the grave where the heart-broken Exile is lain. 

4 ' Friends of my youth ! I must leave you forever, 

And hasten to dwell in a region unknown : — 
Yet time cannot change, nor the broad ocean sever, 

Hearts firmly united and tried as our own. 
Ah, no ! though I wander, all sad and forlorn, 

In a far distant land, yet shall memory trace, 
When far o'er the ocean's white surges I'm borne, 

The scenes of past pleasures, — my own native place. 

" Farewell, shores of Erin, green land of my fathers : — 
Once more, and forever, a mournful adieu! 
For round thy dim headlands the ocean-mist gathers, 

And shrouds the fair isle I no longer can view. 
I go — but wherever my footsteps I bend, 

For freedom and peace to my own native isle, 
And contentment and joy to each warm-hearted friend 
Shall be the heart's prayer of the lonely Exile ! " 
Haverhill, 1825. 

This poem was by Whittier, written in 1825 at the 
age of seventeen, and sent by his elder sister Mary for 
purposes of publication. The further history of its 
reception is thus told by Garrison in a lecture on Whit- 
tier, never printed by himself, but of which this extract 
is given by Garrison's biographers : — 

" Going upstairs to my office, one day, I observed a letter 
lying near the door, to my address ; which, on opening, I 
found to contain an original piece of poetry for my paper, 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 23 

the Free Press. The ink was very pale, the handwriting 
very small ; and, having at that time a horror of newspaper 
'original poetry/ — which has rather increased than dimin- 
ished with the lapse of time, — my first impulse was to tear 
it in pieces, without reading it; the chances of rejection, 
after its perusal, being as ninety-nine to one; . . . but, 
summoning resolution to read it, I was equally surprised and 
gratified to find it above mediocrity, and so gave it a place 
in my journal. . . . As I was anxious to find out the writer, 
my post-rider one day divulged the secret — stating that he 
had dropped the letter in the manner described, and that it 
was written by a Quaker lad, named Whittier, who was 
daily at work on the shoemaker's bench, with hammer and 
lapstone, at East Haverhill. Jumping into a vehicle, I lost 
no time in driving to see the youthful rustic bard, who came 
into the room with shrinking diffidence, almost unable to 
speak, and blushing like a maiden. Giving him some words 
of encouragement, I addressed myself more particularly to 
his parents, and urged them with great earnestness to grant 
him every possible facility for the development of his remark- 
able genius. . . . 

" Almost as soon as he could write, he [Whittier] gave 
evidence of the precocity and strength of his poetical genius, 
and when unable to procure paper and ink, a piece of chalk 
or charcoal was substituted. He indulged his propensity 
for rhyming with so much secrecy (as his father informed 
us), that it was only by removing some rubbish in the g'arret, 
where he had concealed his manuscripts, that the discovery 
was made. This bent of his mind was discouraged by his 
parents : they were in indigent circumstances, and unable to 
give him a suitable education, and they did not wish to in- 
spire him with hopes which might never be fulfilled. . . . 
We endeavoured to speak cheeringly of the prospect of their 
son ; we dwelt upon the impolicy of warring against Nature, 
of striving to quench the first kindlings of a flame which 
might burn like a star in our literary horizon — and we 
spoke too of fame — ' Sir/ replied his father, with an emotion 
which went home to our bosom like an electric shock, l poetry 
will not give him bread. 7 What could we say ? The fate 



24 JOHN GREENLEAE WHITTIER [chap. 

of Chatterton, Otway, and tile whole catalogue of those who 
had perished by neglect, rushed upon our memory, and — 
we were silent." 1 

The family tradition is simply that the number of 
the newspaper containing his contribution was thrown 
out, one day, by the carrier to the youthful Whittier, 
as he was working with his uncle on a stone wall by 
the roadside ; and he read it with natural delight. 
Some days later a young man of fine appearance and 
bearing drove out to see him, accompanied by a young 
lady. This was Garrison, who bad driven fourteen 
miles for that purpose. Whittier was in his working 
clothes, in the field, and it needed his sister Mary's 
persuasion to bring him to the house. Thus did he 
and Garrison first meet, and the latter expressed 
frankly to the elder Whittier his opinion of his son's 
talent, and the suggestion that the youth should be 
sent to a better school than Haverhill then afforded. 
The elder Whittier did not promptly accept this ; it 
does not appear precisely whether from some lingering 
distrust of higher education, or simply from his own 
poverty. Whittier wrote to Garrison thirty years 
later (1859), recognising only the latter ground. " My 
father did not oppose me ; he was proud of my pieces, 
but as he was in straitened circumstances he could 
do nothing to aid me. He was a man in advance of 
his times, remarkable for the soundness of his judg- 
ment and freedom from popular errors of thinking. 
My mother always encouraged me, and sympathised 
with me." 

He sent also another poem, entitled " The Deity," an 
amplification of the eleventh and twelfth verses of 
1 " Garrison's Life," I. 67, 68. 



ii.] SCHOOL BAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 25 

the nineteenth, chapter of First Kings. This was also 
written in 1825, and was published in the Free Press 
of June 22, 1826. * Mr. Garrison introduced it as 
follows : — 

" The author of the following graphic sketch, which would 
do credit to riper years, is a youth of only sixteen years, who 
we think bids fair to prove another Bernard Barton, of whose 
persuasion he is. His poetry bears the stamp of true poetic 
genius, which, if carefully cultivated, will rank him among 
the bards of his country." 

Other poems — or versified contributions — bore 
such a wide range of titles as " The Vale of the Mer- 
rimack/' " The Death of Alexander," " The Voice of 
Time," "The Burial of the Princess Charlotte of 
Wales," "To the Memory of William Penn," "The 
Shipwreck," "Paulowna" "Memory," and the like; 
but it is impossible now to find in these the traces of 
genius which Garrison saw, or thought he saw ; nor has 
their author preserved any of the above, except the 
first two, even in the appendix to his Riverside 
edition. 

Later, when Garrison edited The Journal of the 
Times at Bennington, Vt., he printed in it four 
poems by Whittier, and wrote of him, " Our friend 
Whittier seems determined to elicit our best pane- 
gyrics, and not ours only, but also those of the public. 
His genius and situation no more correspond with 
each other than heaven and earth. But let him not 
despair. Fortune will come, ere long, 'with both 
hands full.' " 2 Whittier was by this time editing the 
American Manufacturer in Boston. 

i See Whittier's " Works," IV. 334. 

2 Garrison's Journal of the Times, Dec. 5, 1828 ; "Life," I. 115. 



26 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

When Garrison was in England at a great Anti- 
slavery Convention, that same year, Whittier wrote to 
him (Nov. 10, 1833) : " I have, my dear Garrison, just 
finished reading thy speech at the Exeter Hall meet- 
ing. It is full of high and manly truth — terrible in 
its rebuke, but full of justice. The opening, as a 
specimen of beautiful composition, I have rarely seen 
excelled/' * 

It is to be noticed that both these young editors were 
the hearty supporters of what was called " Henry Clay 
and the American system," and that when Whittier 
met Clay in Washington, years after, and was asked 
why he did not support for office that very popular 
man, replied that it was because he could not support 
a slaveholder. 2 

The relation between Garrison and Whittier is to be 
further traced in this correspondence between Garrison 
and some young ladies in Haverhill who called them- 
selves " Inquirers after Truth." 

" W. L. Garrison to * Inquirers after Truth.' 

" Boston, March 4, 1833. 

" You excite my curiosity and interest still more by in- 
forming me that my dearly beloved Whittier is a friend and 
townsman of yours. Can we not induce him to devote his 
brilliant genius more to the advancement of our cause and 
kindred enterprises, and less to the creation of romance and 
fancy, and the disturbing incidents of political strife 1 " 

" Boston, March 18, 1833. 

"You think my influence will prevail with my dear 
Whittier more than yours. I think otherwise. If he has 

i " Garrison's Life," I. 369, note. 
2 " Garrison's Life," I. 190. 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 27 

not already blotted my name from the tablet of his memory, 
it is because his magnanimity is superior to neglect. We 
have had no correspondence whatever, for more than a year, 
with each other ! Does this look like friendship between 
us ? And yet I take the blame all to myself. He is not a 
debtor to me — I owe him many letters. My only excuse is 
an almost unconquerable aversion to pen, ink, and paper (as 
well he knows), and the numerous obligations which rest 
upon me, growing out of my connection with the cause of 
emancipation. Pray secure his forgiveness, and tell him that 
my love to him is as strong as was that of David to Jonathan. 
Soon I hope to send him a contrite epistle ; and I know he 
will return a generous pardon." x 

Garrison wrote after the visit to Haverhill (1833), 
" To see my dear Whittier once more, full of health 
and manly beauty, was pleasurable indeed " ; and it 
was only three months before Whittier's pamphlet ap- 
peared entitled " Justice and Expediency ; or Slavery 
considered with a view to its rightful remedy, Aboli- 
tion." 

When Garrison had urged greater school advantages 
for Whittier, it was a bit of advice which the elder 
Whittier received, as has been seen, rather coldly ; but 
when the same counsel was given by the editor of the 
Haverhill Gazette, Mr. A. W. Thayer, and was accom- 
panied by the offer to take the boy into his own fam- 
ily and let him attend the newly formed Haverhill 
Academy, the kind proposal was accepted. His in- 
struction began on May 1, 1827, the necessary money 
having been raised by extra work done by him in 
making a new kind of slippers, just then invented. 
So carefully did Whittier plan to meet the cost of his 
half year's teaching, that he calculated on having 

i " Garrison's Life," I. 331. 



28 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

twenty-five cents of surplus at the end of the year, 
and had it. 

It is an unusual thing for a newly established acad- 
emy to be opened with an ode by a pupil just entered, 
but this was the case with the Haverhill Academy on 
April 30, 1827, when the oration was given by the 
Hon. Leverett Saltonstall of Salem. The poem can- 
not now be found, but we can easily test the product 
of the young student's muse as to quantity at least, 
by the columns of the Haverhill Gazette, which 
yielded forty-seven of his poems in 1827 and forty- 
nine in 1828. These were given under various sig- 
natures, of which "Adrian" was the chief, while 
"Donald," "Timothy," "Micajah," and "Ichabod" 
were others, and the modest initial " W." filled up the 
gaps. The first which appeared under his full name 
was a long one, " The Outlaw," printed in the Gazette 
on Oct. 28, 1828. He seems to have made an effort 
in early life to preserve the " Greenleaf ," which was 
always his home name, he differing curiously at this 
last point from Lowell, who was always James at 
home and Russell, especially in England, to the world 
outside. 

Out of all these poems written before 1829, Whittier 
himself preserved, in the collected edition of his 
works, only eight, and these in an appendix, in dis- 
couragingly small type, as if offering very little en- 
couragement to the reader. Probably these would 
have passed into oblivion with the rest, had they not 
been, as he says in his preface, "kept alive in the 
newspapers for the last half-century, and some of them 
even in book form." They represent, the author says, 
" the weak beginnings of the graduate of a small 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 29 

country district-school, sixty years ago." " That they 
met with some degree of favour at that time may be 
accounted for by the fact that the makers of verse 
were then few in number, with little competition in 
their unprofitable vocation, and that the standard of 
criticism was not discouragingly high." * 

It is curious that he here threw into this shadow of 
oblivion even his first long poem, "Mogg Megone," 
which he had nevertheless included in the first collect- 
ive edition of his poems, in 1857, though saying of it 
in his preface that it was in a great measure composed 
in early life; "and it is scarcely necessary to say that 
its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen 
at any subsequent period." 

An attempt was made by Mr. Thayer to get a vol- 
ume containing " The Poems of Adrian " published by 
subscription in 1828, but this failed of success, perhaps 
fortunately. 

The best description of Whittier's personal bearing 
at that time is given by one who was then a friend 
and associate of his younger sister, and was doubtless 
often at the house. This was Miss Harriet Minot, 
a daughter of Judge Minot of Haverhill, and after- 
ward Mrs. Pitman of Somerville. She wrote thus of 
him to Mr. Francis H. Underwood, in 1883 : — 

" I can tell you nothing of him as a boy. I wish I could, 
but he is older than I, lived three miles from the village of 
Haverhill, where my father's home was, and was nearly 
nineteen years old when I first saw him. ... He was a 
very handsome, distinguished-looking young man. His eyes 
were remarkably beautiful. He was tall, slight, and very 
erect, a bashful youth, but never awkward, my mother said, 

i" Works," IV. 332. 



80 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

who was a better judge than I of such matters. He went 
to school awhile at Haverhill Academy. There were pupils 
of all ages from ten to twenty-five. My brother George 
Minot, then about ten years old, used to say that Whittier 
was the best of all the big fellows, and he was in the habit 
of calling him ' Uncle Toby.' Whittier was always kind 
to children, and under a very grave and quiet exterior there 
was a real love of fun and a keen sense of the ludicrous. 
In society he was embarrassed, and his manners were in 
consequence sometimes brusque and cold. With intimate 
friends he talked a great deal and in a wonderfully inter- 
esting manner ; usually earnest, often analytical, and fre- 
quently playful. He had a great deal of wit. It was a 
family characteristic. The study of human nature was very 
interesting to him, and his insight was keen. He liked to 
draw out his young friends, and to suggest puzzling doubts 
and queries. 

"When a wrong was to be righted or an evil to be 
remedied, he was readier to act than any young man I ever 
knew, and was very wise in his action, shrewd, sensible, 
practical. The influence of his Quaker bringing-up was 
manifest. I think it was always his endeavour 

* To render less 
The sum of human wretchedness.' 

This, I say, was his stedfast endeavour, in spite of an inborn 
love of teasing. He was very modest, never conceited, 
never egotistic. 

"One could never flatter him. I never tried; but I 
have seen people attempt it, and it was a signal failure. 
He did not flatter, but told very wholesome and unpalatable 
truths, yet in a way to spare one's self-love by admitting 
a doubt whether he was in jest or earnest. 

" The great questions of Calvinism were subjects of which 
he often talked in those early days. He was exceedingly 
conscientious. He cared for people — quite as much for 
the plainest and most uncultivated, if they were original 
and had something in them, as for the most polished. 

" He was much interested in politics, and thoroughly 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EAKLY VENTURES 31 

posted. I remember, in one of his first calls at our house, 
being surprised at his conversation with my father upon 
Governor Gerry and the gerrymandering of the state, or 
the attempt to do it, of which I had until then been 
ignorant. 

" He had a retentive memory and a marvellous store of 
information on many subjects. I once saw a little common- 
place book of his, full of quaint things and as interesting as 
South ey's. 

" His house was one of the most delightful that I ever 
knew, situated in a green valley, where was a laughing brook, 
fine old trees, hills near by, and no end of wild flowers. 
What did they want of the music and pictures which man 
makes when they had eyes to see the beauties of Nature, 
ears to hear its harmonies, and imaginations to reproduce 
them ? It makes me impatient to hear people talk of the 
dulness and sordidness of young life in New England fifty 
years ago ! There was Nature with its infinite variety ; 
there were books, the best ever written, and not too many 
of them; there were young men and maidens with their 
eager enthusiasm ; there were great problems to be solved, 
boundless fields of knowledge to explore, a heaven to be- 
lieve in, and neighbours to do good to. Life was very full. 

" Whittier's home was exceptionally charming on account 
of the character of its inmates. His father, a sensible and 
estimable man, died before I knew the home. His mother 
was serene, dignified, benevolent — a woman of good judg- 
ment, fond of reading the best books — a woman to honour 
and revere. His aunt, Mercy Hussey, who lived with them, 
was an incarnation of gracefulness and graciousness, of re- 
finement and playfulness, an ideal lady. His sister Eliza- 
beth, * the youngest and the dearest/ snared his poetic gifts, 
and was a sweet rare person, devoted to her family and 
friends, kind to every one, full of love for all beautiful 
things, and so merry, when in good health, that her com- 
panionship was always exhilarating. I cannot imagine her 
doing a wrong thing or having an unworthy thought. She 
was deeply religious, and so were they all. 

" I have said nothing of Whittier in his relations to 



32 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

women. There was never a particle of coxcombry about 
him. He was delicate and chivalrous, but paid few of the 
little attentions common in society. If a girl dropped her 
glove or handkerchief in his presence, she had to pick it up 
again, especially if she did it on purpose. 

" I was about to speak of his thrift and frugality, and of 
his independence, and of his early taking upon himself the 
care of the family. ... I have not mentioned the anti- 
slavery cause, the subject nearest to his heart after the year 
1833, the subject about which he talked most, for which he 
laboured most, and to which he was most devoted. All his 
friends became abolitionists. I was deeply in sympathy 
with him on this question ; but this is a matter of history, 
and he should recount his own experience." * 

Whittier does not preserve among his early poems 
" The Song of the Yermonters, 1779," published anon- 
ymously in the New England Magazine in 1833. He 
taught school in a modest way after his first half-year 
at the academy, then took a second and final term at 
the institution, partly paying his expenses by posting 
the ledgers of a business man in Haverhill. Through 
Garrison he was offered the editorship of a weekly 
temperance paper called The Philanthropist, in Bos- 
ton, and wrote the following letter to his friend 
Thayer, asking his advice as to acceptance. It shows, 
better than anything else, his condition of mind at the 
period. 

"Shad Parish, 28th of 11th mo., 1828. 

"Friend A. W. Thayer, — I have been in a quandary 
ever since I left thee, whether I had better accept the offer 
of Friend Collier, or nail myself down to my seat, — for, 
verily, I could not be kept there otherwise, — and toil for 
the honourable and truly gratifying distinction of being con- 
sidered * a good cobbler.' . . . No — no — friend, it won't 

1 Underwood's "Whittier," 75-8. 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 33 

do. Thee might as well catch a weasel asleep, or the Old 
Enemy of Mankind in a parsonage-house, as find me con- 
tented with that distinction. 

" I have renounced college for the good reason that I have 
no disposition to humble myself to meanness for an education 
— crowding myself through college upon the charities of others, 
and leaving it with a debt or an obligation to weigh down 
my spirit like an incubus, and paralyze every exertion. The 
professions are already crowded full to overflowing ; and I, 
forsooth, because I have a miserable knack of rhyming, must 
swell the already enormous number, struggle awhile with 
debt and difficulties, and then, weary of life, go down to my 
original insignificance, where the tinsel of classical honours 
will but aggravate my misfortune. Verily, friend Thayer, 
the picture is a dark one — but from my heart I believe it 
to be true. What, then, remains for me ? School-keeping 
— out upon it ! The memory of last year's experience comes 
up before me like a horrible dream. No, I had rather be a 
tin-peddler, and drive around the country with a bunch of 
sheepskins hanging to my wagon. I had rather hawk 
essences from dwelling to dwelling, or practise physic be- 
tween Colly Hill and Country Bridge [the most sparsely 
settled portion of the East Parish]. 

"Seriously — the situation of editor of the Philanthro- 
pist is not only respectable, but it is peculiarly pleasant to 
one who takes so deep an interest, as I really do, in the 
great cause it is labouring to promote. I would enter upon 
my task with a heart free from misanthropy, and glowing 
with that feeling that wishes well to all. I would rather 
have the memory of a Howard, a Wilberforce, and a Clark- 
son than the undying fame of Byron. . . . 

" I should like to see or hear from Mr. Carlton [the prin- 
cipal of the academy] before I do anything. He is one of 
the best men — to use a phrase of my craft — that ever trod 
shoe-leather." 2 

After leaving the academy, Whittier plunged with un- 
expected suddenness into journalism, which took with 
i Pickard, I. 70. 



34 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

him the form of a nursery for ardent political zeal. In 
Boston he was put in, as has been supposed, through 
Garrison's influence, as editor of the American Manu- 
facturer, He was paid but nine dollars a week, half of 
which he saved toward paying off the mortgage on his 
father's farm, and he could avail himself of the Boston 
libraries which then seemed to him large, though they 
would now appear small. Then for six months he 
edited the Haverhill Gazette, and also contributed to 
the New England Review of Hartford, Conn., then 
edited by the once famous wit and dashing writer, 
George D. Prentice. The latter afterward transferred 
the editorship of the New England Review to Whit- 
tier, he himself having gone to Lexington, Ky., to 
write the " Life of Henry Clay," who was expecting a 
nomination for the Presidency. Nothing in the rela- 
tion between Prentice and Whittier — the reckless 
man of the world and the shy young Quaker — seems 
quite so amusingly inappropriate as Prentice's first 
letter to him, ere they had even met. It runs 
thus: — 

" Whittier, I wish you were seated by my side, for I 
assure you that my situation, just now, is very much to my 
particular satisfaction. Here am I in my hotel, with a good- 
natured fire in front of me, and a bottle of champagne at 
my left hand. Can you imagine a situation more to a good 
fellow's mind 1 . . . Then you have more imagination than 
judgment. . . . The gods be praised that I am not a mem- 
ber of the temperance society ! 

" Would to fortune I could come to Haverhill, before my 
return to Hartford — but the thing is impossible. I am 
running short both of time and money. Well, we can live 
on and love, as we have done. Once or twice I have even 
thought that my feelings towards you had more of romance 
in them than they possibly could have if we were acquainted 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 35 

with each other. I never yet met for the first time with a 
person whose name I had learned to revere, without feeling 
on the instant that the beautiful veil with which my imagi- 
nation had robed him was partially rent away. If you can- 
not explain this matter, you are no philosopher." 

Whittier had at Hartford more of social life than 
ever before, and made the acquaintance of Mrs. Sig- 
ourney, then famous ; also of E. A. P. Barnard, after- 
ward president of Columbia College. 

Whittier' s first thin volume, " Legend of New Eng- 
land " (Hartford, Hanmer and Phelps, 1831), was pub- 
lished with some difficulty at the age of twenty-four ; 
and was suppressed in later life by the author himself, 
he buying it up, sometimes at the price of five dollars 
a copy, in order that he might burn it. It gave little 
promise, either in its prose or verse, and showed, like the 
early works of Hawthorne, the influence of Irving. The 
only things preserved from it, even in the appendix to 
his collected poems, are two entitled " Metacom " and 
"Mount Agioochook"; 1 and lie has wisely preserved 
nothing of the very rhetorical and melodramatic prose 
writing. Yet he showed in these the desire for home 
themes and the power to discover them. In " The'Eattle- 
snake Hunter " the theme is an old man who devotes his 
life, among the mountains of Vermont, to the extirpation 
of rattlesnakes, one of which has killed his wife. " The 
Unquiet Sleeper " is based on the tradition of an old 
man in a New Hampshire village who died suddenly 
near his home, and whose cries were heard at night from 
the grave ; the author claiming to have known people 
who had actually heard them. " The Spectre Ship " is 
from a tradition in Mather's " Magnalia." " The Mid- 
l" Works," IV. 343-8. 



36 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

night Attack " is a narrative of adventure with the 
Indians on the Kennebec River in 1722, on the part of 
Captain Harmon and thirty forest rangers. "The 
Human Sacrifice " records the escape of a young white 
girl from Indians, who are terrified by rumbling noises 
that proceed from a carbonate concealed in the rocks ; 
this suggesting the " Great Carbuncle " of Hawthorne. 
All these themes, it will be noticed, are American and 
local, and hence desirable as selections ; but the talent 
of the author was not precociously mature, like that of 
Hawthorne, nor did he continue in the same direction. 
Yet so far as the selection of the themes went, his 
work was a contribution to the rising school of native 
literature. 

Aubrey de Vere once wrote to Tennyson that Sara 
Coleridge, daughter of the poet, had said to him that 
" However inferior the bulk of a young man's poetry 
may be to that of the poet when mature, it generally 
possesses some passages with a special freshness of 
their own, and an inexplicable charm to be found in 
them alone." It is just this quality which seems 
wanting in the earliest poems of Whittier. As we 
may observe in his youthful action a certain element 
of ordinary self-seeking and merely personal ambition 
which utterly vanishes in mature life, so there was, at 
that time, in his verses, an essentially commonplace 
quality which he himself recognised at a later time by 
his destruction of the volumes. Happy is he who has 
only this fault to deal with, and has no tinge of coarse- 
ness or mere frivolity for which to blush ; and from 
all such elements Whittier was plainly free. Never- 
theless, it must always remain one of the most curious 
facts in his intellectual history, that his first poetical 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 37 

efforts gave absolutely no promise of the future ; he 
in this respect differing from all contemporary Ameri- 
can poets — Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, 
Poe, and Lowell. 

Whittier's desires in youth were almost equally 
divided between politics and poetry ; and there pres- 
ently appeared a third occupation in the form of that 
latent physical disease which haunted his whole life. 
This obliged him to give up the editorship of the New 
England Review and to leave Hartford on Jan. 1, 1832. 
He had been editing the " Literary Bemains of J. G-. 
C. Brainard," an early Connecticut poet, and wrote a 
preface, but did not see it in print until he had 
returned to Haverhill. 

He wrote about himself thus frankly to Mrs. 
Sigourney (Feb. 2, 1832) as to his condition of mind 
and body at that period. 

" I intended when I left Hartford to proceed immediately 
to the West. But a continuance of ill health has kept me 
at home. I have scarcely done anything this winter. 
There have been few days in which I have been able to 
write with any degree of comfort. I have indeed thrown 
together a poem of some length, the title of which (* Moll 
Pitcher ') has very little connection with the subject. This 
poem I handed to a friend of mine, and he has threatened 
to publish it. It will not have the advantage or disadvan- 
tage of my name, however. I have also written, or rather 
begun to write, a work of fiction, which shall have for its 
object the reconciliation of the North and the South, — 
being simply an endeavour to do away with some of the prej- 
udices which have produced enmity between the Southron 
and the Yankee. The style which I have adopted is about 
halfway between the abruptness of Laurence Sterne and 
the smooth gracefulness of W. Irving. I may fail, — 
indeed, I suspect I shall, — but I have more philosophy 



38 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

than poetry in my composition, and if I am disappointed in 
one project, I have only to lay it aside and take another up. 
If I thought I deserved half the compliments you have been 
pleased to bestow upon my humble exertions, I should cer- 
tainly be in danger of becoming obnoxious to the charge of 
vanity. The truth is, I love poetry, with a love as warm, 
as fervent, as sincere, as any of the more gifted worshippers 
at the temple of the Muses. I consider its gift as some- 
thing holy, and above the fashion of the world. In the 
language of Francis Bacon, ' The Muses are in league with 
time/ — which spares their productions in its work of uni- 
versal desolation. But I feel and know that 

* To other chords than mine belong 
The breathing of immortal song.' 

And in consequence, I have been compelled to trust to other 
and less pleasant pursuits for distinction and profit. Poli- 
tics is the only field now open for me, and there is something 
inconsistent in the character of a poet and modern politician. 
People of the present day seem to have ideas similar to those 
of that old churl of a Plato, who was for banishing all poets 
from his perfect republic." * 

" Moll Pitcher " was published (Boston, 1832) anony- 
mously, and again, but this time with his name, eight 
years later, together with " The Minstrel Girl " (Phil- 
adelphia, 1840). Neither of these has been included 
in his collected works. No American poet whose 
fame outlived him had ever produced in early life so 
much verse which he was ready to forget. On the 
other hand, he evidently had support all ready for him 
should he seriously enter public life. He wrote to his 
friend Jonathan Law in 1832, speaking of this : " My 
prospects are too good to be sacrificed for any uncer- 
tainty. I have done with poetry and literature. I 
can live as a farmer, and that is all I ask at present, 
i Pickard, pp. 100-2. 



ii.] SCHOOL DAYS AND EARLY VENTURES 39 

I wish you could make me a visit, you and Mrs. Law ; 
our situation is romantic enough — out of the din and 
bustle of the village, with a long range of green hills 
stretching away to the river ; a brook goes brawling at 
their foot, overshadowed with trees, through which 
the white walls of our house are just visible. In 
truth, I am as comfortable as one can well be, always 
excepting ill health." 

Mr. Pickard informs us that it is made clear by his 
other correspondents that the prospects of which 
Whittier speaks are in the line of political promotion ; 
and that he was prevented from accepting the offer by 
his friends of a nomination for Congress, only because 
he was below what he supposed to be the legal age, 
twenty-five. 1 

i Pickard, I. 118. 



CHAPTER III 

WHITTIER THE POLITICIAN 

As Whittier was a writer for the press before he at- 
tended a high school, so he was a politician before he 
was a reformer. The most surprising revelation made 
by Mr. Pickard's late biography of Whittier was of 
the manner in which he, like many promising young 
Americans, was early swept into political work of a 
really demoralising description from which only the 
antislavery movement withdrew him. So closely 
were the two phases allied, that at the very moment 
(1833) when he was writing and printing at his own 
expense an antislavery pamphlet on " Justice and 
Expediency/' he was aiding to support a well-known 
public man, Caleb Cushing, for whom those two phases 
were apparently only dice to play with. Fortune 
offering for Whittier an advancement in a similar 
manner, he escaped the great peril by a hair's breadth. 
His biographer faces frankly this curious early phase 
in the poet's life, and volunteers the remark : " His few 
years in practical politics had fostered an ambition for 
power and patronage of which those can have no idea 
who only knew him after he had devoted himself to 
philanthropic labours." This is shown irresistibly in a 
letter written when there seemed a chance of his being 
sent as a Representative to Congress. This was the 
situation in brief. Congressional elections had at that 

40 



chap, in.] WHITTIER THE POLITICIAN 41 

time to be determined, in Massachusetts, by a majority v 
over all other candidates, not as now by a mere plu- 
rality. In the district where he dwelt, Caleb Cushing 
was the candidate, and Whittier had himself supported 
him ; but seventeen attempts at election had been suc- 
cessively made, without securing a majority, so that 
Cushing himself was probably willing that Whittier, 
a far more popular candidate, should be tried. The 
difficulty was that at the next trial, already appointed 
for November, Whittier would be under the required 
age, twenty-five. To meet this difficulty, the youth 
made the following proposal, it being understood that 
Mr. Thayer, who is mentioned, was a leading editor 
in the district, and had opposed Cushing, but was 
ready to support Whittier. Mr. Kittredge, also men- 
tioned, was another rival candidate. The letter is 
dated East Parish, Wednesday morning, and was 
probably written in August, 1832. 

" Since conversing with you yesterday, a new objection to 
our project has occurred to me, — the Constitution requires 
that the Representative shall be twenty-five years of age. 
I shall not be twenty-five till the 17th of December. So 
that I would not be eligible at the next trial in November. 
This, you will see, gives a different aspect to the whole affair. 
Perhaps, however, if the contest is prolonged till after the 
next time, the project might be put in execution. 

" Suppose you advocate a holding on to Mr. C. in your 
Newburyport letter? Suppose, too, that you nominate in 
your paper Mr. Cushing without any one-sided convention ? 
After the trial in November, you can then use the arguments 
in favour of our plan which you propose to do now ; and if it 
suits Mr. C, he can then request his friends to give their 
votes for some other individual for the sake of promoting 
peace in the district. The Kittredge committee would in 
that case probably nominate a candidate, — ■ if one could be 



42 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

found, — but, I understand Mr. Thayer, not with the ex- 
pectation of his being elected. 

"If I were nominated after the November trial, Mr. 
Thayer, situated as he and I relatively are, would support 
the nomination, and let the other candidate go, as he did 
John Merrill. Purdy, the ■ Telegraph/ and the * Essex Reg- 
ister ' would do the same. 

" The truth of the matter is, the thing would be peculiarly 
beneficial to me, — if not at home, it would be so abroad. 
It would give me an opportunity of seeing and knowing our 
public characters, and in case of Mr. Clay's election, might 
enable me to do something for myself or my friends. It 
would be worth more to me now, young as I am, than al- 
most any office after I had reached the meridian of life. 

" In this matter, if I know my own heart, I am not en- 
tirely selfish. I never yet deserted a friend, and I never 
will. If my friends enable me to acquire influence, it shall 
be exerted for their benefit. And give me once an oppor- 
tunity of exercising it, my first object shall be to evince my 
gratitude by exertions in behalf of those who had conferred 
such a favour upon me. 

" If you write to Newburyport to-day, you can say that 
we are willing and ready to do all we can at the next trial ; 
say, too, that the Kittredge folks will scarcely find a candi- 
date, and that there may be a chance for Cushing better 
than he has yet had ; that at all events, it can do no harm ; 
and that if after that trial Mr. C. sees fit to request his 
friends not to vote for him for the 22nd Congress, there 
will be as good a chance then of electing a Cushing man as 
there is now. Say, too, if you please, that I am ready to go 
on with the contest, and you had better recommend mildness 
in the process of electioneering. 1 " 

There are many lapses from a high standard which 
count for less at twenty-four than at thirty ; and what 
strikes the reader is not so much that Whittier should 
wish to go to Congress at that early age, as that his 

l Pickard's " Whittier," 168, 169. 



in.] WHITTIER THE POLITICIAN 43 

plans were based on the very methods, from which we 
have been trying of late years to get free — the appeal 
to mutual self-interest in securing posts of honour. 
The italics in the letter are Whittier's own ; they are 
the points on which he wished to dwell. They would 
seem to imply a selfishness of nature which nothing 
else in his life indicates ; and the only fact in his later 
life, with which they seem to bear the slightest con- 
nexion, is that which might otherwise have passed 
unobserved, namely, that he never seems to have iden- 
tified himself — among the various reforms which 
enlisted him — with the Civil Service Reform. 

Nothing, however, came of this. Cushing succeeded 
in being elected in 1834, and Whittier showed political 
skill on its best side in making Cushing the medium 
through which antislavery measures could be presented 
to Congress, when no other conspicuous member except 
John Quincy Adams would venture on this. Cushing 
was practically elected through Whittier three times 
in succession ; but the latter gradually lost all faith in 
him, and when Cushing at last tried to suppress his 
own antislavery record, that he might get an office 
when the Whigs came into power in 1841, Whittier 
was too strong for him, reprinted the letter which 
under his own management had carried Cushing 
through his last election to Congress, and prefaced it 
with such skill as absolutely to defeat Cushing' s ambi- 
tion. 

The result was that the National Senate, still largely 
under the influence of the slave power, three times 
rejected Cushing' s nomination as Secretary of the 
Treasury, as it had previously rejected Edward 
Everett on the same ground, because he too had 



44 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

coquetted with, the rising Antislavery party. The 
skill of Whittier — just the kind of strategetical skill 
which is rare among reformers — thus made itself 
formidable. The same thing was felt ten years later 
in the management which put Charles Sumner in the 
United States Senate; and by a curious coincidence, 
Caleb Cushing, who was then a member of the Legis- 
lature, was again arrayed against Whittier, and again 
failed. 

The important local ordeal of 1848 which, resulted 
in the downfall of the old Whig party in Massachu- 
setts, and the substitution of what was then called the 
" Coalition " of the Free Soil and Democratic parties, 
placing Charles Sumner in the United States Senate, 
practically for life — this interested Whittier pro- 
foundly. I remember well that though he never made 
a speech in that contest, I always heard his political 
instinct and foresight fully recognised by my elder 
brothers, who regarded the other leaders — C. F. 
Adams, E. H. Dana, J. G-. Palfrey — as too aca- 
demic or unpractical for success. I, taking some per- 
sonal part in the contest, as a novice, and speaking at 
" Free Soil " meetings which Whittier attended, remem- 
ber that he watched me very closely, criticising and, 
when he could, commending ; indeed, usually overrat- 
ing the little efforts of young speakers, as non-speakers 
are apt to do. Thus he wrote me after my very first 
effort, when I emerged with difficulty from the formi- 
dable ordeal of following the mighty Sumner : " Thy 
address here was liked well, notwithstanding thy mis- 
givings. Courage. Go on and prosper. Yours truly, 
J. G. W." And again later, in indorsement of an invi- 
tation to speak at East Salisbury (Oct. 27, 1848) : " We 



in.] WHITTIER THE POLITICIAN 45 

hope thou wilt aid us in this movement [it is to be 
noticed that he does not use the Quaker f orm, 6 thee 
will'] as we wish to make a good demonstration. I 
hear a fine report of thy labour in W. Amesbury and 
Haverhill. Good was done. J. G. Whittier." Such 
kindly words from a man of forty to a callow youth 
of four and twenty suggest a gratitude for which time 
brings no f orgetfulness ; at least, when that man is 
Whittier. 

On April 24, 1850, Charles Sumner was elected 
United States Senator from Massachusetts, on the 
twenty-sixth ballot, by a majority of one. Whittier, 
who had taken his accustomed quiet but eager share 
in all the preliminary negotiations, wrote thus to his 
friend, Mrs. Lippincott, — known as " Grace Green- 
wood" in literature, — giving his view of the matter. 

"lam slowly recovering from the severest illness I have 
known for years, the issue of which, at one time, was to me 
exceedingly doubtful. Indeed, I scarcely know now how to 
report myself, but I am better, and full of gratitude to God 
that I am permitted once more to go abroad and enjoy this 
beautiful springtime. The weather now is delightfully warm 
and bright, and the soft green of the meadows is" climbing 
our hills. It is luxury to live. One feels at such times ter- 
ribly rooted to this world : old Mother Earth seems sufficient 
for us. . . . After a long trial and much anxiety, our grand 
object in Massachusetts has been attained. We have sent 
Charles Sumner into the United States Senate, — a man 
physically and spiritually head and shoulders above the old 
hackneyed politicians of that body. The plan for this was 
worked out last summer at Phillips Beach, and I sounded 
Sumner upon it the evening we left you at that place. He 
really did not want the office, but we forced it upon him. 
I am proud of old Massachusetts, and thankful that I have 
had an humble share in securing her so true and worthy a 



46 JOHN GKEENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

representative of her honour, her freedom, and intellect, as 
Charles Sumner. He is a noble and gifted man, earnest and 
truthful. I hope great things of him, and I do not fear for 
his integrity and fidelity, under any trial. That Sims case 
was particularly mean on the part of the Boston shopkeepers. 
I never felt so indignant as when I saw the courthouse in 
chains." * 

This last reference was to the rendition of Thomas 
Sirns, a fugitive slave, during the progress of whose 
case, at the Boston Court-house, the doors were pro- 
tected by chains. 

In July, 1854, Whittier was invited by Ralph Waldo 
Emerson and others, to attend a meeting of the friends 
of freedom in Boston, to form a new party organization, 
from men from both political folds ; this being one of 
the meetings which led to the formation of the Repub- 
lican party. His reply, addressed to Emerson ("Ames- 
bury, 3rd 7th month"), was as follows : — 

" The circular signed by thyself and others, inviting me 
to meet you at Boston on the 7th inst., has just reached me. 
If I am able to visit Boston on that day, I shall be glad to 
comply with the invitation. Your movement I regard as 
every way timely and expedient. I am quite sure good will 
come of it, in some way. I have been for some time past 
engaged in efforts tending to the same object, — the con- 
solidation of the antislavery sentiment of the North. For 
myself, I am more than willing to take the humblest place 
in a new organization made up from Whigs, anti-Nebraska 
Democrats, and Free-soilers. I care nothing for names ; I 
have no prejudices against Whig or Democrat; show me 
a party cutting itself loose from slavery, repudiating its 
treacherous professed allies of the South, and making the 
protection of Man the paramount object, and I am ready 
to go with it, heart and soul. The great body of the people 

iPickard's " Whittier," I. 355, 356. 



in.] WHITTIER THE POLITICIAN 47 

of all parties here are ready to unite in the formation of a 
new party. The Whigs especially only wait for the move- 
ment of the men to whom they have been accustomed to 
look for direction. I may be mistaken, but I fully believe 
that Kobert C. Winthrop holds in his hands the destiny of 
the North. By throwing himself on the side of this move- 
ment he could carry with him the Whig strength of New 
England. The Democrats here, with the exception of two 
or three office-holders and their dependents, defend the course 
of Banks, and applaud the manly speeches of Sumner." * 

I have gone a little in advance of the development 
of this part of Whittier's nature — that of the politi- 
cian — to show how the gift which at first seemed to 
threaten him with moral danger became, in its gradual 
development, a real service to the cause of freedom. 
We must now return, however, to the birth of the anti- 
slavery movement itself, and the way in which it took 
control of Whittier, and pressed all his gifts, ideal and 
practical, into its service. 

i Pickard's "Whittier," I. 374. 



CHAPTEE IV 

ENLISTMENT FOR LIFE 

By an interesting coincidence the first man who had 
encouraged Whittier in literature became his leader in 
reforms. William Lloyd Garrison, who had sought 
him at the plough as a boy, sought him a little later 
for a more important aim, when he encouraged him to 
leave all and become an ally of the antislavery move- 
ment. Whittier had already published more than a 
hundred poems with fair success ; he had made friends 
in politics and was regarded as a young man of promise 
in that direction. But he published in the Haverhill 
Gazette in November, 1831, a poem, " To William Lloyd 
Garrison," and from that time forward his career was 
determined. 

In 1830, about the time when Whittier took the 
editorship of the New England Review, Garrison 
had been imprisoned in Baltimore as an abolitionist ; 
in January, 1831, the Liberator had been established ; in 
1833 Whittier had printed an anti-slavery pamphlet. 
In doing this he had bid farewell to success in politics 
and had cast in his lot, not merely with slaves, but with 
those who were their defenders even to death. Of these 
none came nearer to him, or brought home to him, at the 
very beginning, the possible outcome of his own career, 
than Dr. Beuben Crandall of Washington, who was ar- 

48 



chap, iv.] ENLISTMENT FOR LIFE 49 

rested for the crime of merely lending Whittier's pam- 
phlet to a brother physician, for which offence he was 
arrested in 1834, and was " confined in the old city 
prison until his health was destroyed, and he was 
liberated only to die." The fact is mentioned in 
" Astraea at the Capital, " where Whittier says : — 

" Beside me gloomed the prison cell 
Where wasted one in slow decline, 
For uttering simple words of mine, 
And loving freedom all too well." 

Whittier had been at first friendly, like Garrison, 
to the Colonisation Society, and had believed heartily 
in the future services to freedom of the then popular 
and always attractive statesman, Henry Clay. In 
June, 1834, however, he had become convinced that 
both Clay and the colonisation movement were in the 
wrong, although up to 1837, it seems, he wrote a pri- 
vate letter to Clay, urging him to come out against 
that whole enterprise. 

He received from Garrison, in 1833, an invitation to 
attend as a delegate the National Anti-slavery Con- 
vention, to be held in Philadelphia in December. In 
answer to this call, he wrote to Garrison from Haver- 
hill, Nov. 11, 1831 : — 

" Thy letter of the 5th has been received. I long to go 
to Philadelphia, to urge upon the members of my Religious 
Society the duty of putting their shoulders to the work — 
to make their solemn testimony against slavery visible over 
the whole land — to urge them by the holy memories of 
Woolman, and Benezet, and Tyson, to come up as of old to 
the standard of Divine Truth, though even the fires of another 
persecution should blaze around them. But the expenses of 
the journey will, I fear, be too much for me : as thee know, 
our farming business does not put much cash in our pockets. 



50 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

I am, however, greatly obliged to the Boston Y[oung] 
M[en's] Association for selecting me as one of their delegates. 
I do not know how it may be, — but whether I go or not, 
my best wishes and my warmest sympathies are with the 
friends of Emancipation. Some of my political friends are 
opposed to my antislavery sentiments, and perhaps it was 
in some degree owing to this that, at the late Convention 
for the nomination of Senators for Essex, my nomination was 
lost by one vote. I should have rejoiced to have had an 
opportunity to cooperate personally with the abolitionists of 
Boston. . . . Can thee not find time for a visit to Haverhill 
before thee go on to Philadelphia 1 I wish I was certain of 
going with thee. At all events, do write immediately on 
receiving this, and tell me when thee shall start for the 
Quaker City. " l 

The obstacle being removed by the generosity of 
Samuel E. Sewall, afterward a lifelong colaborer with 
Whittier in the antislavery movement, the latter 
went to the convention, to which he was the youngest 
delegate. The party travelled in stage-coaches, and 
Whittier doubtless felt, as did the young Keats on his 
first visit to the North of England, as if he were going 
to a tournament. Of the sixty members in the con- 
vention, twelve were from Massachusetts, and twenty- 
one were members of the Society of Friends. Whittier 
was one of the secretaries and also one of the sub-com- 
mittee of three which passed their Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. All this shows clearly the prestige which 
the young man had already attained, although this 
again was due largely to the leader of the convention, 
Garrison. In a paper published in the Atlantic Monthly, 
forty years later (February, 1874), Whittier gave his own 
reminiscence of this important experience, and from this 
I make a few extracts, recalling vividly the event: — 
i " Garrison's Life," I. 393-94. 



iv.] ENLISTMENT FOR LIFE 51 

" In the gray twilight of a chill day of late November, 
forty years ago, a dear friend of mine residing in Boston 
made his appearance at the old farmhouse in East Haver- 
hill. He had been deputed by the abolitionists of the city, 
"William L. Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall, and others, to in- 
form me of my appointment as a delegate to the Convention 
to be held in Philadelphia for the formation of an American 
Antislavery Society, and to urge upon me the necessity of 
my attendance. 

" Few words of persuasion, however, were needed. I was 
unused to travelling • my life had been spent on a secluded 
farm, and the journey, mostly by stage-coach, was really a 
formidable one. Moreover, the few abolitionists were every- 
where spoken against, their persons threatened, and in some 
instances a price set upon their heads by Southern legisla- 
tures. Pennsylvania was on the borders of slavery, and it 
needed small effort of imagination to picture to oneself the 
breaking up of the convention and maltreatment of its 
members. This latter consideration I do not think weighed 
much with me, although I was better prepared for serious 
danger than for anything like personal indignity. I had read 
Governor Trumbull's description of the tarring and feather- 
ing of his hero, MacFingal, when, after the application of 
the melted tar, the feather-bed was ripped open and shaken 
over him, until 

* Not Maia's son with wings for ears 
Such plumes about his visage wears, 
Nor Milton's six-wing'd angel gathers 
Such superfluity of feathers,' 

and I confess I was quite unwilling to undergo a martyrdom 
which my best friends could scarcely refrain from laughing 
at. But a summons like that of Garrison's bugle-blast could 
scarcely be unheeded by me who from birth and education 
held fast the traditions of that earlier abolitionism which, 
under the lead of Benezet and Woolman, had effaced from 
the Society of Friends every vestige of slaveholding. I had 
thrown myself, with a young man's fervid enthusiasm, into 
a movement which commended itself to my reason and con- 



52 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

science, to my love of country and my sense of duty to God 
and my fellow-men. ... I could not hesitate, but prepared 
at once for the journey. It was necessary that I should 
start on the morrow, and the intervening time, with a small 
allowance for sleep, was spent in providing for the care of 
the farm and homestead during my absence." 

He wrote further of those composing the conven- 
tion : — 

" Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly 
composed of comparatively young men ; some in middle age, 
and a few beyond that period. They were nearly all plainly 
dressed, with a view to comfort rather than elegance. Many 
of the faces turned toward me wore a look of expectancy 
and suppressed enthusiasm ; all had the earnestness which 
might be expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset 
with difficulty, and perhaps peril. The fine intellectual 
head of Garrison, prematurely bald, was conspicuous ; the 
sunny-faced young man at his side, in whom all the beati- 
tudes seemed to find expression, was Samuel J. May, ming- 
ling in his veins the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys ; 
a man so exceptionally pure and large-hearted, so genial, 
tender, and loving, that he could be faithful to truth and 
duty without making an enemy. 

4 The deil wad look into his face 
And swear he could na wrang him.' 

That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon 
whose somewhat martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a 
little out of place, was Lindley Coates, known in all eastern 
Pennsylvania as a stern enemy of slavery j that slight, eager 
man, intensely alive in every feature and gesture, was 
Thomas Shipley, who for thirty years had been the protector 
of the free coloured people of Philadelphia, and whose name 
was whispered reverently in the slave-cabins of Maryland as 
the friend of the black man — one of a class peculiar to old 
Quakerism, who, in doing what they felt to be a duty and 
walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear, and 



iy.] ENLISTMENT FOR LIFE 53 

shrank from no sacrifice. Braver man the world has not 
known. Beside him, differing in creed, but united with 
him in works of love and charity, sat Thomas Whitson, of the 
Hicksite school of Friends, fresh from his farm in Lancaster 
County, dressed in plainest homespun, his tall form sur- 
mounted by a shock of unkempt hair, the odd obliquity of 
his vision contrasting strongly with the clearness and direct- 
ness of his spiritual insight. Elizur Wright, the young pro- 
fessor of a Western college, who had lost his place by his 
bold advocacy of freedom, with a look of sharp concentration, 
in keeping with an intellect keen as a Damascus blade, 
closely watched the proceedings through his spectacles, open- 
ing his mouth only to speak directly to the purpose. . . . 
In front of me, awakening pleasant associations of the old 
homestead in the Merrimac Valley, sat my first school-teacher, 
Joshua Coffin, the learned and worthy antiquarian and his- 
torian of Newbury. A few spectators, mostly of the Hick- 
site division of Friends, were present in broadbrims and 
plain bonnets." * 

He thus describes the closing words of this historic 
convention, at which the whole organized antislavery 
movement came into being : — 

"On the morning of the last day of our session, the 
Declaration, with its few verbal amendments, carefully en- 
grossed on parchment, was brought before the convention. 
Samuel J. May rose to read it for the last time. His sweet, 
persuasive voice faltered with the intensity of his emotions 
as he repeated the solemn pledges of the concluding para- 
graphs. After a season of silence, David Thurston, of 
Maine, rose as his name was called by one of the secretaries, 
and affixed his name to the document. One after another 
passed up to the platform, signed, and retired in silence. 
All felt the deep responsibility of the occasion ; the shadow 
and forecast of a lifelong struggle rested upon every coun- 
tenance." 2 

i"Works," VII. 176-78. 
* "Works," VII. 184-85. 



64 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

As Wliittier has himself portrayed some of the 
leaders in this memorable historic gathering, there 
should be added this delineation of his own appearance 
and bearing, from the graphic pen of Lowell's friend, 
J. Miller McKim, to whom the younger poet inscribed 
his own vivid picture of the later antislavery re- 
formers : — 

"He wore a dark frock coat, with standing collar, which, 
with his thin hair, dark and sometimes flashing eyes, and 
black whiskers, not large, but noticeable in those unhirsute 
days, gave him, to my then unpractised eye, quite as much 
of a military as a Quaker aspect. His broad, square fore- 
head and well-cut features, aided by his incipient reputation 
as a poet, made him quite a noticeable feature of the con- 
vention." 

Whittier was now enlisted for life in the anti- 
slavery body, and his feeling for Garrison reached its 
high-water mark at this convention ; and is recorded 
in verses of which these are a part : — 

"To W. L. G. 

" Champion of those who groan beneath 

Oppression's iron hand : 
In view of penury, hate, and death, 

I see thee fearless stand, 
Still bearing up thy lofty brow 

In the steadfast strength of truth, 
In manhood sealing well the vow 

And promise of thy youth. 

11 Go on — for thou hast chosen well ; 
On in the strength of God ! 
Long as one human heart shall swell 
Beneath the tyrant's rod, 



iv.] ENLISTMENT FOR LIFE 65 

Speak in a slumbering nation's ear 

As thou hast ever spoken, 
Until the dead in sin shall hear, — 

The fetter's link be broken ! 

" I love thee with a brother's love, 

I feel my pulses thrill, 
To mark thy spirit soar above 

The cloud of human ill. 
My heart hath leaped to answer thine, 

And echo back thy words, 
As leaps the warrior's at the shine, 

And flash of kindred swords ! " * 

This was his first feeling toward his early friend 
and his last ; but there were to follow long years when 
the internal contests of the antislavery body were 
scarcely less vehement and far more personally bitter 
than those waged with the supporters of slavery ; and 
these cannot be passed by unnoticed. In the mean- 
time, Whittier was enlisted for the war. 

1 " Works," III. 9. 



CHAPTEK V 

THE SCHOOL OF MOBS 

All this was, however, but the peaceful early stage 
of the antislavery moment; the mob period was ap- 
proaching. It was a time peculiarly trying to those 
who had been bred in the non-resistance theory, and 
had to choose for themselves among the three alterna- 
tives, resistance, endurance, and flight. Those who in 
later years read the fine dramatic delineations in 
the poem " Barclay of Ury " do not quite appreciate 
the school in which Whittier learned what life meant 
to Barclay. The first time that actual violence came 
near Whittier, in his own town of Haverhill, though 
it missed him, was after there had been established 
(on April 3, 1834) an antislavery society of which 
he was secretary. A year or so later, in August, 
1835, the Eev. Samuel J. May of Syracuse, N.Y., 
preached in the Unitarian pulpit at Haverhill and 
announced that he should give an antislavery ad- 
dress in the evening. The result is thus described by 
the historian of Haverhill : — 

" The evening meeting was entirely broken up by a mob 
outside, who threw sand and gravel and small stones against 
the windows, breaking the glass, and by their hootings 
frightened the female portion of the audience, and led to the 
fear on the part of all, that more serious assaults would 
follow if the meeting was continued. It was therefore 

56 



chap, v.] THE SCHOOL OF MOBS 57 

summarily dissolved. It was perhaps fortunate that this 
course was adopted, as a loaded cannon was then being 
drawn to the spot, to add its thunderings to the already- 
disgraceful tumults of that otherwise quiet Sabbath even- 
ing." l 

The preacher thus mobbed was, by universal admis- 
sion, the most moderate, disarming, and courteous of 
all antislavery lecturers, indeed so eminent for these 
particular virtues as almost to constitute a class by him- 
self. His reception shows how absolutely unjust was 
the charge that the abolitionists brought upon them- 
selves, by their mere manner, the persecution they 
often received. In this case the meeting was broken 
up in uproar, and Mr. May was roughly handled as he 
went out, but as he had Elizabeth Whittier on one arm 
and her friend Harriet Minot on the other, he escaped 
actual violence. Less fortunate was George Thomp- 
son, the distinguished English antislavery orator, 
who had been the leader of the agitation for the abo- 
lition of slavery in the English colonies, and who came 
to America by invitation of Garrison. He acted on the 
fine principle laid down for all time by the so-called 
infidel Thomas Paine, who, w r hen some one quoted to 
him the Latin motto, " Where liberty is, there is my 
country" (JJbi libertas, ibi patria) replied that this 
was a coward's phrase, since the brave man's watch- 
word would be, "Where liberty is not, there is my 
country." Thompson was of course received with 
peculiar hostility as a foreigner, a feeling not yet ex- 
tinct, for it is not many years since I saw him dis- 
dainfully classed as "a foreign carpet-bagger," and 
that by one of the most eminent of Boston philan- 
1 Chase's " History of Haverhill," p. 505. 



58 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

thropists. He had been mobbed, accordingly, in one 
place after another, including Salem, whence he had 
escaped with difficulty and had been afterward se- 
creted by Whittier for two weeks in East Haverhill. 
He and Whittier had personally undertaken a few 
antislavery meetings, and had set out for that purpose. 
I take what followed from the excellent description of 
their friend, Mrs. Cartland : — 

"... Thinking themselves secure because personally 
unknown, the two friends drove to Plymouth, N.H., to 
visit Nathaniel P. Rogers, a prominent abolitionist. On 
their way they stopped for the night in Concord at the 
house of George Kent, who was a brother-in-law of Rogers. 
After they had gone on their way, Kent attempted to make 
preparations for an antislavery meeting to be held when 
they should return. There was furious excitement, and 
neither church, chapel, nor hall could be hired for the pur- 
pose. On their arrival Whittier walked out with a friend 
in the twilight, leaving Thompson in the house, and soon 
found himself and friend surrounded by a mob of several 
hundred persons, who assailed them with stones and bruised 
them somewhat severely. They took refuge in the house of 
Colonel Kent, who, though not an abolitionist, protected 
them and baffled the mob. From thence Whittier made his 
way with some difficulty to George Kent's, where Thomp- 
son was. The mob soon surrounded the house and de- 
manded that Thompson and "the Quaker" should be given 
up. Through a clever stratagem the mob was decoyed away 
for a while, but, soon discovering the trick, it returned, re- 
enforced with muskets and a cannon, and threatened to blow 
up the house if the abolitionists were not surrendered. 

" A small company of antislavery men and women had 
met that evening at George Kent's, among whom were two 
nieces of Daniel Webster, daughters of his brother Ezekiel. 
All agreed that the lives of Whittier and Thompson were in 
danger, and advised that an effort should be made to escape. 
The mob filled the street, a short distance below the gate 



v.] THE SCHOOL OF MOBS 59 

leading to Kent's house. A horse was quietly harnessed in 
the stable, and was led out with the vehicle under the 
shadow of the house, where Whittier and Thompson stood 
ready. It was bright moonlight, and they could see the 
gun-barrels gleaming in the street below them. The gate 
was suddenly opened, the horse was started at a furious 
gallop, and the two friends drove off amidst the yells and 
shots of the infuriated crowd. They left the city by the 
way of Hookset Bridge, the other avenues being guarded, 
and hurried in the direction of Haverhill. In the morning 
they stopped to refresh themselves and their tired horse. 
While at breakfast they found that 'ill news travels fast,' 
and gets worse as it goes ; for the landlord told them that 
there had been an abolition meeting at Haverhill the night 
before, and that George Thompson, the Englishman, and a 
young Quaker named Whittier, who had brought him, were 
both so roughly handled that they would never wish to talk 
abolition again. When the guests were about to leave, 
Whittier, just as he was stepping into the carriage, said to 
the landlord, 'My name is Whittier, and this is George 
Thompson. J The man opened his eyes and mouth with 
wonder as they drove away. 

" When they arrived at Haverhill they learned of the do- 
ings of the mob there, and the fortunate escape of their 
friend May." x 

Another of these Thompson mobs, at which Whittier 
was not present, is thus described by Mrs. Lydia Maria 
Child, who was there. I insert her account, because it 
describes the period better than any other narrative I 
know, and gives the essential atmosphere of the life 
amid which Whittier was reared. 

"My most vivid recollection of George Thompson is of 
his speaking at Julian Hall on a memorable occasion. Mr. 
Stetson, then keeper of the Tremont House, was present, 
with a large number of his slaveholding guests, who had 

1 Underwood's " Whittier," pp. 116-18. 



60 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

come to Boston to make their annual purchases of the mer- 
chants. Their presence seemed to inspire Mr. Thompson. 
Never, even from his eloquent lips, did I hear such scathing 
denunciations of slavery. The exasperated Southerners 
could not contain their wrath. Their lips were tightly com- 
pressed, their hands clinched ; and now and then a muttered 
curse was audible. Finally, one of them shouted, * If we 
had you down South, we'd cut off your ears.' Mr. Thomp- 
son folded his arms in his characteristic manner, looked 
calmly at the speaker, and replied, ' Well, sir, if you did cut 
off my ears, I should still cry aloud, ' He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear.' 

" Meanwhile my heart was thumping like a sledge-ham- 
mer ; for, before the speaking began, Samuel J. May had 
come to me, and said in a very low tone : ' Do you see how the 
walls are lined by stout truckmen, brandishing their whips ? 
They are part of a large mob around the entrance in Fed- 
eral Street, employed by the Southerners to seize George 
Thompson and carry him to a South Carolina vessel in 
waiting at Long Wharf. A carriage with swift horses is 
at the door, and these Southerners are now exulting in the 
anticipation of lynching him. But behind that large green 
curtain at the back of the platform there is a door leading 
to the chamber of a warehouse. We have the key to that 
door, which leads to a rear entrance of the building on 
Milk Street. There the abolitionists have stationed a car- 
riage with swift horses and a coloured driver, who of course 
will do his best for George Thompson. Now, as soon as 
Mr. Thompson ceases speaking, we want antislavery women 
to gather round him and appear to detain him in eager con- 
versation. He will listen and reply, but keep imperceptibly 
moving backward toward the green curtain. You will all 
follow him, and when he vanishes behind the curtain you 
will continue to stand close together, and appear to be still 
talking with him.' 

"At the close of the meeting twenty-five or thirty of us 
women clustered around Mr. Thompson and obeyed the 
instructions we had received. When he had disappeared 
from our midst there was quiet for two or three minutes, 









v.] THE SCHOOL OF MOBS 61 

interrupted only by our busy talking. But the Southerners 
soon began to stand on tiptoe and survey the platform anx- 
iously. Soon a loud oath was heard, accompanied by the 
exclamation, ' He's gone ! ' Then such a thundering stam- 
pede as there was down the front stairs I have never heard. 
We remained in the hall, and presently Samuel J. May 
came to us, so agitated that he was pale to the very lips. 
1 Thank God, he is saved ! ' he exclaimed ; and we wrung 
his hands with hearts too full for speech. 

" The Boston newspaper press, as usual, presented a 
united front in sympathy with the slaveholders. . . . But 
they were all in the dark concerning the manner of his es- 
cape ; for as the door behind the curtain was known to very 
few, it remained a mystery to all except the abolitionists." * 

Garrison wrote of the Concord mob to his brother- 
in-law, Sept. 12, 1835, " Our brother Thompson had a 
narrow escape from the mob at Concord, and Whittier 
was pelted with mud and stones, but he escaped bodily 
damage." Thompson wrote to Garrison, Sept. 15 : — 

"You would have been delighted to have shared our 
adventures in Concord (?) on the memorable night of the 4th 
inst. The mirthful and the melancholy were so strangely 
and equally blended throughout, that I scarcely know which 
had the advantage, and certainly could not tell the story of 
our ' hairbreadth 'scapes ' without exciting your risibility. 
However, my escape from the ignorant and murderous rab- 
ble that clamoured and thirsted for my blood was very provi- 
dential, and I desire to feel grateful to Him who I believe 
watches over our persons and our cause, and will restrain 
the malice of our foes, or cause our sufferings to advance His 
glory. 

" Poor Whittier was compelled to receive a tithe of the 
vengeance accumulated for me. I had really little expecta- 
tion and less desire to be stoned by proxy, but such is the 
fruit of keeping bad company." 2 

i Underwood's " Whittier," pp. 118-20. 
2 " Garrison's Life," I. 520. 



62 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

Next followed the Garrison mob, properly so called, 
during which Whittier happened to be in Boston, in 
attendance at an extra session of the state legislature, 
of which he was then a member. His sister being at 
the women's antislavery convention, he went in search 
of her, and found that the meeting had been broken up 
by a mob, or dispersed by the mayor to quiet those 
outside, and that the rioters had been allowed by the 
mayor to take down the very sign, " Female Anti- 
slavery Society " and break it to pieces, thus lynching 
George Thompson by proxy, as he expresses it, in a bit 
of harmless board. Whittier saw Garrison hurried 
through the street with a rope round him, and taken 
for safety to jail, where Whittier and May visited him 
in his cell ; then, being warned that the house which 
was their own stopping-place might also be attacked, 
they removed Elizabeth Whittier without her know- 
ing the reason, while they themselves mounted guard 
all night. This was the ordeal by which Whittier's 
Quaker training was tested, but it rang true. He would 
not arm himself, but he did not flinch where others 
were arming. 

His courage was to be once more tested, however, in 
Philadelphia, while he edited the Pennsylvania Free- 
man, A hall had been erected by the antislavery 
people and other reformers, and was first opened on 
May 15, 1838. There was an address by the eminent 
lawyer, David Paul Brown, and a poem of a hundred 
and fifty lines by Whittier, whose publishing office 
was in the building. It was not one of his best poems, 
and he excluded it from his complete edition ; but it 
was enough, with other things, to call out the gradu- 
ally increasing wrath of a mob which hooted, yelled, 



v.] THE SCHOOL OF MOBS 63 

and broke windows. On the third day the president 
of the Pennsylvania Hall Association called for the 
intervention of the mayor and sheriff. About sunset 
the mayor replied that, if the building were vacated 
and given into his possession, he would disperse the 
rioters. The keys were given up to him, and he ad- 
dressed the mob as "Fellow-citizens." Deprecating 
disorder in general terms, he added : " There will be 
no meeting here this evening. The house has been 
given up to me. The managers had the right to hold 
the meeting, but as good citizens they have, at my 
request, suspended their meeting for this evening. 
We never call out the military here. We do not need 
such measures. Indeed, I would, fellow-citizens, look 
upon you as my police ! I trust you will abide by the 
laws and keep order. I now bid you farewell for the 
night." 

Since mob law began on this planet there prob- 
ably was never a more dastardly invitation to outrage. 
Three cheers were given for the mayor, and the mob 
went at once to its work. Eansacking the antislavery 
bookstore and office, they carried all combustibles to 
the platform and set the building on fire. Two South- 
ern witnesses will best tell the tale. 

A Southern account of the fire appeared in a New 
Orleans paper, as follows : — 

"At 8.30 p.m. the people, feeling themselves able and 
willing to do their duty, burst open the doors of the house, 
entered the Abolition book-store, and made complete havoc 
of all within. They then beat out all the windows, and, 
gathering a pile of window-blinds and a pile of abolition 
books together, they placed them under the pulpit, and set 
fire to them and the building. ... The multitude, as soon 
as they saw the building on fire, gave a loud shout of joy. 



64 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

A large number of splendid fire-engines were immediately on 
the spot, many of which could throw water more than a hun- 
dred feet high ; but the noble firemen, to a man, of all the 
companies present, refused to throw one drop of water on the 
consuming building. All they did was to direct their engines 
to play upon the private buildings in the immediate vicinity 
of the blazing hall, some of which were in danger, as they 
were nearly joining the hall. . . . Such conduct in the Phil- 
adelphia fire companies deserves the highest praise and grati- 
tude of all friends of the Union, and of all Southerners in 
particular ; and I hope and trust the fire companies of New 
Orleans will hold a meeting, and testify in some suitable man- 
ner to the Philadelphia fire companies their sincere approba- 
tion of their noble conduct on this occasion." 

Another Southerner wrote to a Georgian paper how 
he and a friend helped, and enjoyed the spectacle : — 

" We lent our feeble efforts to effect the demolition of this 
castle of iniquity. . . . The fire companies repaired tardily 
to the scene of action, and not a drop of water did they 
pour upon that accursed Moloch until it was a heap of ruins. 
Sir ! it would have gladdened your heart to have beheld that 
lofty tower of mischief enveloped in flames. The devouring 
element seemed to wear, combined with its terrible majesty, 
beauty and delight. To witness those beautiful spires of 
flame gave undoubted assurance to the heart of the Southron 
that in his brethren of the North he has friends." 1 

This shows what the mob discipline was. It did 
not drive Whittier from his non-resistant principles, as 
was the case with most of the men of that stamp who 
went nearly thirty years later to Kansas ; it only made 
him more absolutely sure and resolute in proclaiming 
the antislavery gospel. 

Nor was this the whole story. The next day a "Shelter 
for Coloured Orphans " was burned, and a church of the 
i Linton's " Whittier," pp. 74-76. 



v.] THE SCHOOL OF MOBS 65 

coloured people attacked and damaged. The day before 
the first attack the Pennsylvania Antislavery Society 
had announced a meeting at the hall for the election 
of officers, and at the appointed hour it met by the 
smoking ruins and went through its business amid the 
howling of the mob. The tumults lasted a week, and 
at the end of this time the mayor offered a reward for 
the arrest of the rioters, from which nothing followed. 
The summary of the whole affair in the Pennsylvania 
Freeman was written by Whittier and Charles Bur- 
leigh. It was practically the record of the poet's 
baptism into the second degree of reform — the period 
of mob violence. 

Years after, Whittier had a curious memorial of this 
period : — 

"Once when he was passing through Portland, Me., a 
man, seeing him go by, stepped out of his shop and asked 
if his name were Whittier, and if he were not the man who 
was stoned, years ago, by a mob at Concord. The answer 
being in the affirmative, he said he believed a devil possessed 
him that night ; for he had no reason to wish evil either to 
Whittier or Thompson, yet he was filled with a desire to kill 
them, and he thought he should have done so if they had not 
escaped. He added that the mob was like a crowd of de- 
mons, and he knew one man who had mixed a black dye to dip 
them [the abolitionists] in, which would be almost impos- 
sible to get off. He could not explain to himself or to an- 
other the state of mind he was in." l 

iFields's " Whittier," p. 47. 



CHAPTEE VI 

A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 

Times of peace, it is said, have few historians, but 
times of war have still fewer, because the hotter the 
fight the harder it is to stop and describe it. It will 
be useless to attempt any full explanation, for the 
readers of to-day, of the great division which 
embittered the lives of so many among the early 
abolitionists, as years passed on. The strength of 
character which makes a leader of reform is not easily 
combined with the sweet attributes of the peacemaker ; 
and after the right to agitate a great principle is fought 
for and won, there is apt to be a good deal of further 
pugilism needed in determining just how it shall be 
agitated. The leader of the antislavery movement 
was of course Garrison, and he had been Whittier's 
especial guide and source of influence in his personal 
career ; so that their mutual relation became in time 
a difficult question. After the Liberator had been 
mobbed into fame, it turned out to be in the hands of 
a man who had, not one moral aim alone in view, but 
many ; who had a whole quiver full of arrows to dis- 
charge at a dozen public evils, and would by no means 
be limited by any one else in the right of selection. 
This was all very proper if Garrison's newspaper be- 
longed to him in fee simple; but what became of it 

66 



chap, vi.] A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 67 

as an organ of the whole antislavery body, of which 
Whittier happened to be one ? 

There was the Bible question, the Sunday question, 
the labour question ; all these were to be handled by 
a man who had in him far more of fighting capacity, 
of logical brain, than could be limited to one cause 
alone. On most of these points Whittier was as radi- 
cal as Garrison, but he was by temperament more 
strictly executive, and wished to lay out the work 
systematically and fight each battle by itself. Then 
came the great question of voting or non-voting, and 
here Garrison's disunion attitude, in itself logical 
enough, went against Whittier' s whole temperament ; 
and it ended in their being, for a time at least, leaders 
and combatants in two separate armies. This involved 
some differences of attitude on very pressing questions ; 
and the transfer of the other antislavery newspaper, 
the Emancipator, to the possession of those who could 
not wholly support Garrison, was an act which divided 
families and left seeds of bitterness of which the " Life 
of Garrison " by his sons gives a thorough and labori- 
ous record. It would now lead into a labyrinth were 
I to follow it up ; it is enough to say that Mrs. Chap- 
man's view as to Whittier — so the latter himself told 
me at one time — was this, " As to that, the only ques- 
tion is, whether Whittier is more knave or fool." Now 
Mrs. Chapman was, as I have already said, as distinctly 
the leader among the antislavery women as was Gar- 
rison among the men. 

In short, the question of union or disunion drew a 
sharp line of cleavage among those already enlisted, 
and it was impossible, I suppose, for the originators 
of the whole movement to do otherwise than they did 



68 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

— this outcome involving, it must be owned, much 
bitter quarrelling. But I am glad to testify, for the 
credit of all concerned, that upon the younger men 
who came on the stage after the lines were first drawn, 
there was imposed no necessity of taking sides ; and I 
never, for one, found any difficulty in working with 
both bodies of men and women — the Garrisonians or 
Disunionists and the voting abolitionists or Liberty 
Party men. The latter, it must be remembered, was 
the organisation which became the " Free Soil " party, 
then the " Eepublican " party, and in that form finally 
controlled the nation. It must be owned, however, in 
viewing the attitude of these two dividing factions, 
that the Disunionists were in general the more inter- 
esting class personally and more eloquent in speech 
than their voting brethren, precisely because they 
could speak without the slightest reference to policy 
or organisation; that the very leaders of the latter, 
such as Whittier and Samuel E. Sewall, happened to 
have no gift of platform eloquence, though much faculty 
of organising and conciliating ; that the very fact of 
the entanglement of voting abolitionists with party 
leaders who never thoroughly belonged with them, 
such as Clay and Van Bur en, was an embarrassment 
and a hindrance ; and finally, that the immense and 
unflinching weight of the women, as non-voters, was 
thrown on the side of G-arrison and his party, whereas 
the voting abolitionists were often tempted to keep 
rather shy of a non-voting sex. All this I say, although 
observation has taught me that all these differences 
of policy, which seemed such a life-and-death matter 
at the time, are now as uninteresting to the younger 
generation as is antimasonry or any other cause which 



vi.] A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 69 

once shook the nation. It is, moreover, the actual fact 
that though the leaders such as Garrison and Whittier 
opposed and distrusted each other for a time, they ended 
after many years in renewed friendship : just as Adams 
and Jefferson, after years of far bitterer contest, could 
spend their old age in the friendliest correspondence, 
and even death found them in such a hand-and-hand 
relation that it took them both on the same day, 
and that day the anniversary of the Declaration of 
Independence. 

In the meanwhile, each of the abolitionist leaders 
followed the path that belonged to his temperament. 
Garrison had no gift for personal organisation, in the 
politician's sense ; but no man ever excelled him in the 
strength and fearlessness of his individual statements, 
The clear maxims of his early platform, " I will not 
equivocate, I will not apologise, I will not retreat a 
single inch, and I will be heard/' simply marked him 
as one of the most absolutely straightforward hitters 
who ever encountered a great wrong. Hence came 
his power ; while Whittier, equally sincere, proved to 
have, unlike Garrison, an unexpected tact and skill of 
management; he could deal with professional politi- 
cians like Clay and Cushing ; he could adapt himself 
to their limitations, and show cause why they should 
be on his side. Even after he knew them to be worth- 
less for freedom, but had need of them, he would keep 
them in his power to the last. One secret of this was 
his absolute unselfishness ; a thing in which he sur- 
passed even Garrison, who possessed the love of 
power, after all, though in its most high-minded form, 
and was never quite at ease in a secondary position ; 
whereas such an attitude never troubled Whittier at 



70 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

all. This is clearly set forth in a letter to the latter's 
friend, Elizabeth Neall. The letter shows also that 
his sympathies as a consistent member of the Society 
of Friends went forth to the women speakers, whom he 
was criticised as not fully sustaining. After all, it is 
always a thing which depends on the individual tem- 
perament of reformers, how far they are to make use 
of a multiplex lens, and how far to concentrate all 
observation on a single point. 

" To Elizabeth JSTeal. 

" 1839. 

" For myself, abolition has been to me its own ' exceed- 
ing great reward.' It has repaid every sacrifice of time, of 
money, of reputation, of health, of ease, with the answer of 
a good conscience, and the happiness which grows out 
of benevolent exertions for the welfare of others. It has 
led me to examine myself. It has given me the acquaintance 
of some of the noblest and best of men and women. It owes 
me nothing. So, then, two of the youngest members of the 
Women's Society are to hold forth. . . . Shade of the 
Apostle Paul ! What is this world coming to % Never 
mind, ' I like it hugely/ as Tristram Shandy said of Yorick's 
sermon, and would like it better to see them wield in their 
delicate fingers the thunderbolts of abolition oratory. As the 
author of ' John Gilpin ' said of the hero and his horse : — 

4 And when he next doth ride abroad, 
May I be there to see ! ' 

Seriously, I see no good reason why they should not speak 
as well as their elders. 'Let the daughters prophesy/ 
agreeably to the promise of the prophet Joel, and let the 
doors be thrown open to all without distinction of sex, and 
then another part of the promise will be verified, 'the 
young men shall see visions ! ' I go the whole length as 
regards the rights of women, however, although I sometimes 
joke a little about it. I am afraid it is a besetting sin of 



vi.] A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 71 

mine to do so in reference to many things in which I feel a 
sober and real interest. I have repented of it a thousand 
times, especially as it gave those who were not intimately 
acquainted with me a false idea of my character. . . ." l 

The only record in the " Life of Garrison " by his 
sons — perhaps the most thoroughly executed biography 
ever written in America, though it could hardly be ex- 
pected to be the most absolutely impartial — of any final 
interview showing the cleavage between him and Whit- 
tier is in a letter from Lucretia Mott, written on Feb. 
25, 1852. She says : " Maria W. Chapman wrote me 
that he [Whittier] was in the [antislavery] office 
a few months since, bemoaning to Garrison that there 
should have been any divisions. ' Why could we not 
all go on together ? ' ( Why not, indeed ? ' said Gar- 
rison ; ( ive stand just where we did. I see no reason 
why you cannot cooperate with the American Society.' 
( Oh/ replied Whittier, ' but the American Society is 
not what it once was. It has the coat, the hat, and the 
waistcoat of the old society, but the life has passed 
out of it.' ' Are you not ashamed,' said Garrison, ' to 
come here wondering why we cannot go on together ? 
No wonder you can't cooperate with a suit of old 
clothes.' " 2 

How far Garrison did justice to the real strength of 
Whittier's nature will perhaps always remain some- 
what doubtful, in view of the fact that eight years be- 
fore this, in 1834, he had briefly characterised him as 
"highly poetical, exuberant, and beautiful." 3 It is 
possible he may have been rather surprised, in later 
years, to find his young proselyte developing a will of 

i Pickard, I. 218-19. 2 " Garrison's Life," III. 35. 

3 " Garrison's Life," I. 461. 



72 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

his own. There was certainly a phase of detached 
relations, when Whittier freely endorsed the prevalent 
criticism of Garrison as dictatorial ; and when Gar- 
rison's foremost counsellor among antislavery women 
Mrs. Chapman, used the phrases she employed about 
Whittier. But it is needless to explore these little 
divergences of the saints, and it is certain that Gar- 
rison, at the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of 
the American Antislavery Society, spoke of Whittier 
as "known and honoured throughout the civilised 
world." He added : " I have no words to express my 
sense of the value of his services. There are few liv- 
ing who have done so much to operate upon the public 
mind and conscience and heart of our country for the 
abolition of slavery as John Greenleaf Whittier." 

Whittier, in his letter, made this companion tribute 
to Garrison : — 

"I must not close this letter without confessing that I 
cannot be sufficiently thankful to the Divine Providence 
which, in a great measure through thy instrumentality, 
turned me so early away from what Roger Williams calls 
6 the world's great trinity, pleasure, profit, and honour,' to 
take side with the poor and oppressed. I am not insensible 
to literary reputation ; I love, perhaps too well, the praise 
and good will of my fellow-men ; but I set a higher value 
on my name as appended to the Antislavery Declaration of 
1833 than on the title-page of any book. Looking over a 
life marked by many errors and shortcomings, I rejoice that 
I have been able to maintain the pledge of that signa- 
ture." 

The lesson thus conveyed is so fine that I linger 
further upon it, to give some extracts from Whittier's 
own review of the matter in his introduction to Oliver 
Johnson's " William Lloyd Garrison and his Times." 



vi.] A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 73 

" I do not know that any word of mine can give addi- 
tional interest to this memorial of William Lloyd Garrison 
from the pen of one of his earliest and most devoted friends, 
whose privilege it has been to share his confidence and his 
labours for nearly half a century : but I cannot well forego 
the opportunity afforded me to add briefly my testimony to 
the tribute to the memory of the great Reformer, whose 
friendship I have shared, and with whom I have been asso- 
ciated in a common cause from youth to age. 

"My acquaintance with him commenced in boyhood. 
My father was a subscriber to his first paper, the Free Press, 
and the humanitarian tone of his editorials awakened a deep 
interest in our little household, which was increased by a 
visit which he made us. When he afterwards edited the 
Journal of the Times, at Bennington, Vt., I ventured to 
write him a letter of encouragement and sympathy, urging 
him to continue his labours against slavery, and assuring him 
that he could 'do great things/ an unconscious prophecy 
which has been fulfilled beyond the dream of my boyish en- 
thusiasm. The friendship thus commenced has remained 
unbroken through half a century, confirming my early confi- 
dence in his zeal and devotion, and in the great intellectual 
and moral strength which he brought to the cause with 
which his name is identified. 

"During the long and hard struggle in which the aboli- 
tionists were engaged, and amidst the new and difficult ques- 
tions and side issues which presented themselves; it could 
scarcely be otherwise than that differences of opinion and 
action should arise among them. The leader and his disci- 
ples could not always see alike. My friend, the author of 
this book, I think, generally found himself in full accord 
with him, while I often decidedly dissented. I felt it my 
duty to use my right of citizenship at the ballot-box in the 
cause of liberty, while Garrison, with equal sincerity, judged 
and counselled otherwise. Each acted under a sense of indi- 
vidual duty and responsibility, and our personal relations 
were undisturbed. If, at times, the great antislavery leader 
failed to do justice to the motives of those who, while in 
hearty sympathy with his hatred of slavery, did not agree 



74 JOHN GKEENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

with some of his opinions and methods, it was but the par- 
donable and not unnatural result of his intensity of purpose 
and his self-identification with the cause he advocated ; and, 
while compelled to dissent, in some particulars, from his 
judgment of men and measures, the great mass of the anti- 
slavery people recognised his moral leadership. The contro- 
versies of old and new organisation, non-resistance and po- 
litical action, may now be looked upon by the parties to 
them who still survive, with the philosophic calmness which 
follows the subsidence of prejudice and passion. We were 
but fallible men, and doubtless often erred in feeling, speech, 
and action. Ours was but the common experience of reform- 
ers in all ages. 

" ' Never in Custom's oiled grooves 
The world to a higher level moves, 
But grates and grinds with friction hard 
On granite boulder and flinty shard. 
Ever the Virtues blush to find 
The Vices wearing their badge behind, 
And Graces and Charities feel the fire 
Wherein the sins of the age expire. ' 

" It is too late now to dwell on these differences. I choose 
rather, with a feeling of gratitude to God, to recall the great 
happiness of labouring with the noble company of whom 
Garrison was the central figure. I love to think of him as 
he seemed to me, when in the fresh dawn of manhood he sat 
with me in the old Haverhill farmhouse, revolving even then 
schemes of benevolence ; or, with cheery smile, welcoming 
me to his frugal meal of bread and milk in the dingy Boston 
printing-room ; or, as I found him in the gray December 
morning in the small attic of a coloured man, in Philadelphia, 
finishing his night-long task of drafting his immortal Decla- 
ration of Sentiments of the American Antislavery Society ; 
or, as I saw him in the jail of Leverett Street, after his al- 
most miraculous escape from the mob, playfully inviting me 
to share the safe lodgings which the state had provided for 
him : and in all the varied scenes and situations where we 



vi.] A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 75 

acted together our parts in the great endeavour and success 
of Freedom. 

" The verdict of posterity in his case may be safely antici- 
pated. With the true reformers and benefactors of his race 
he occupies a place inferior to none other. The private lives 
of many who fought well the battles of humanity have not 
been without spot or blemish. But his private character, 
like his public, knew no dishonour. No shadow of suspicion 
rests upon the white statue of a life, the fitting garland of 
which should be the Alpine flower that symbolises noble 
purity. " 1 

It is nevertheless to be observed that it became 
necessary for Whittier, more than once, in the anti- 
slavery movement, to dissent widely from Garrison and 
his more immediate circle in regard to those reform- 
ers who worked on a somewhat different plane. It 
is a fact worth noticing, for instance, because very 
characteristic, that Whittier, like that very able woman, 
Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, always differed from Garrison 
and his more intimate followers in the view they took 
of the Rev. Dr. William Ellery Channing, to whom 
Whittier had written, of his own impulse, in early 
youth, a serious appeal urging him to enter strenuously 
upon the antislavery agitation. Whittier was, it 
must be remembered, addressing one incomparably his 
superior at that time, in prominence and influence, as 
in years. It was a bold letter to be written by a shy 
Quaker youth of twenty-six to a man more than twice 
his years, for Channing was then almost fifty-four. A 
yet unknown man, Whittier was offering counsel to 
the most popular clergyman in Boston. Written in 
1834, the letter long preceded Channing's Faneuil Hall 
speech of 1837, which first clearly committed him to 
i" Works," pp. 189-92. 



76 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

the antislavery movement; and it still farther pre- 
ceded his work on slavery in 1841, which identified 
him with the enterprise and made him, in the minds 
of the more moderate, its recognised leader. The fact 
is the more interesting, inasmuch as Channing himself, 
in spite of his vast influence with a class whom Garri- 
son had as yet scarcely touched, was always regarded 
with distrust, almost with hostility, by the abolitionists 
proper, and was denounced by Mrs. Maria Weston 
Chapman, as one who " had neither insight, courage, 
nor firmness. " Whittier, on the other hand, always 
maintained, that after Mrs. Child, Dr. Channing had 
made greater sacrifices for the antislavery cause than 
any one, in view of the height and breadth of his pre- 
vious influence and popularity. 1 

In November, 1837, a small volume of Whittier's 
poems was issued in Boston by the publisher of the 
Liberator, Isaac Knapp. It was first printed without 
consulting the poet himself, and was entitled, " Poems 
written during the Progress of the Abolition Question 
in the United States, between the years 1830 and 1838, 
by John Gr. Whittier." This was the first edition of 
his works ; but the first authorised edition did not 
appear until a year later, in November, when a small 
volume, entitled simply " Poems," was issued by Joseph 
Healy, financial agent of the Philadelphia Society. 
This consisted of one hundred and eighty pages, and 
was not limited to his antislavery verse ; including fifty 
poems in all, only eleven of which are retained in the 
permanent edition of his works. The little book is 
ennobled by one of Coleridge's finest passages, used 
as a motto, as follows : — 

1 The letter addressed to him may be found in Pickard's " Whit- 
tier," I. 137. 



vi.] A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 77 

" * There is a time to keep silence/ saith Solomon. But 
when I proceeded to the first verse of the fourth chapter of 
the Ecclesiastes, ' and considered all the oppressions that are 
done under the sun, and beheld the tears of such as are op- 
pressed, and they have had no comforter ; and on the side 
of the oppressors there was power,' I concluded this was 
not the time to keep silence ; for Truth should be spoken 
at all times, but more especially at those times when to 
speak Truth is dangerous." 

In 1840 Whittier's health, had become impaired 
anew ; his father had died, and his mother, sister, and 
aunt had removed their residence to Arnesbury — 
partly for the sake of nearness to their meeting-house ; 
and he joined them there and made the house his legal 
domicile, as it is now his memorial home. 

His service to freedom, after ill health had 
driven him from Philadelphia, was irregular in place 
and form, but constant. He passed from Arnesbury 
to Boston and thence to New York, to Saratoga, to 
Albany, and to western Pennsylvania, and wherever 
there was to be an antislavery convention; which 
meant, in his case, a convention based upon the ballot, 
aiming at political action, and still holding to the faint 
hope that Henry Clay might yet become its leader, 
and that Caleb Cushing might espouse its cause. At 
one time Whittier and Henry B. Stanton were deputed 
by the American Antislavery Society to go through 
Pennsylvania and find, if they could, seventy public 
speakers who would take part in the war against 
slavery. 1 He had at one time planned, when he felt 
himself more in command of his bodily forces, to at- 
tend the World's Antislavery Convention at London 
(June, 1840), but being cautioned by the well-known 
i Pickard's " Whittier," I. 250. 



78 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ..[chap. 

physician, Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, he f orebore tc^fcake 
the risk, his heart being at that period the point of 
danger. • .^ .* 

Of the later tests which came to abolitionists and some- 
times separated them into opposing ranks, little need 
be said, for Whittier was never personally combative, 
and though he was severely tested as to his peace prin- 
ciples, yet the Quaker principle carried him safely 
through. When I was in Kansas in 1856, in the times 
of trouble, I could hear of but one of the theoretical 
non-resistants who had gone thither and who had ad- 
hered faithfully to his principles. I did not agree with 
these views, but went out of my way to call upon him 
and express my respect, a feeling I could not quite enter- 
tain for those who had backslidden, and could then 
give as an excuse that they "never imagined there 
could be such people in the world as the Border Ruf- 
fians." With all Whittier's Arab look and his admi- 
ration of General Gordon, I think he would have found 
himself exposed to being lynched and yet have been a 
Quaker still ; just as his old friend Garrison, through all 
the fugitive slave cases in Boston, kept steadfastly at his 
desk, regarding these as mere incidents, and the punc- 
tuality of the next issue of the Liberator as the important 
thing. When it came to the still more difficult test of 
John Brown, this letter to Mrs. Child showed Whittier 
to be the non-resistant still : — 

''October 21st, [1859], 

" My dear Friend, — I was glad to get a line from thee, 
and glad of the opportunity it affords me and my sister to 
express our admiration of thy generous sympathy with the 
brave but, me thinks, sadly misguided Captain Brown. We 
feel deeply (who does not V) for the noble-hearted, self-sacri- 



vi.] A DIVISION IN THE RANKS 79 

firing old man. But as friends of peace, as well as believers 
in the Sermon on the Mount, we dare not lend any counte- 
nance to such attempts as that at Harper's Ferry. 

" I hope, in our admiration of the noble traits of John 
Brown's character, we shall be careful how we encourage 
a repetition of his rash and ill-judged movement. Thou 
and I believe in 'a more excellent way.' I have just been 
looking at one of the pikes sent here by a friend in Balti- 
more. It is not a Christian weapon ; it looks too much 
like murder. 

" God is now putting our non-resistance principles to a 
severe test. I hope we shall not give the lie to our life- 
long professions. I quite agree with thee that we must 
judge of Brown by his standards ; but at the same time we 
must be true to our settled convictions, and to the duty we 
owe to humanity. 

" Thou wilt see how difficult it is for me to write as thou 
request. My heart is too heavy and sorrowful. I cannot 
write now, and can only wait, with fervent prayer that the 
cause we love may receive no detriment." 



CHAPTER VII 

WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 

It must be borne in mind, as regards Whittier, that 
lie lived not merely at a time when the direct question 
of human freedom was uppermost, but in a period 
when all questions of religious freedom and of social 
reorganisation were coming to the front in many- 
ways. In some of these directions, real progress came 
out of such agitations, and at the very least they 
kept before the public the need of perpetual change 
and rearrangement of laws and usages, to keep up 
with the progress of invention and of democratic 
institutions. It was a time when Emerson wrote of 
the social structure, " The nobles shall not any longer, 
as feudal lords, have power of life and death over the 
churls, but now in another shape, as capitalists, shall 
in all love and peace eat these up as before.'- l 

It was not possible for Whittier, with his tempera- 
ment and principles, to keep himself aloof from these 
seething agitations ; and he showed both the courage 
of Quakerism and its guarded moderation in encoun- 
tering the new problems and their advocates. This 
is visible, for instance, in such letters as the follow- 
ing:— 

1 Emerson, " Life and Letters in New England." 
80 



CH.vii.] WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 81 

"To Ann E. Wendell. 

"Lynn, 11th mo., 1840. 

u I was in Boston this week, and looked in twice upon 
the queer gathering of heterogeneous spirits at the Chard on 
Street chapel assembled under a call issued by Maria W. 
Chapman, Abby Kelley, and others, to discuss the subjects 
of the Sabbath, ministry, and church organisations, and 
some twenty other collateral subjects. When I was present 
the chapel was crowded, a motley-opinioned company, from 
the Calvinist of the straitest sect to the infidel and scoffer. 
Half of the forenoon of the first day was spent in debating 
whether the convention should be organised by the choice 
of president and secretary, or whether these old-fashioned 
restraints should be set aside as unworthy of advocates of 
* the largest liberty,' leaving each member to do and say 
what seemed right in his own eyes ! It was finally decided 
to have a president. Then came on a discussion about the 
Sabbath, in which Garrison and two transcendental Uni- 
tarians, and a woman by the name of Folsom, argued that 
every day should be held sacred ; that it was not a rest 
from labour but from sin that was wanted; that keeping 
First day as holy was not required, etc. On the other 
hand, Amos A. Phelps, Dr. Osgood, and some others con- 
tended for the Calvinistic and generally received views of 
the subject. Dr. Channing, John Pierpont, and many 
other distinguished men were present, but took no part in 
the discussions. No Friends were members of the conven- 
tion, although there were several lookers-on. Judging from 
the little I saw and heard, I do not think the world will 
be much the wiser for the debate. It may have a tendency 
to unsettle some minds." * 

It was in connection with. " The Tent on the Beach " 
that Whittier printed in the New York Nation what 
is perhaps the best statement of the comparative posi- 
tion which poetry and practical reform held in his life. 
It is as follows : — 

i Pickard, I. 266-67. 
G 



82 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

"I am very well aware that merely personal explanations 
are not likely to be as interesting to the public as to the par- 
ties concerned ; but I am induced to notice what is either a 
misconception on thy part, or as is most probable, a failure 
on my own to make myself clearly understood. In the review 
of ' The Tent on the Beach/ in thy paper of last week, I con- 
fess I was not a little surprised to find myself represented as 
regretting my lifelong and active participation in the great 
conflict which has ended in the emancipation of the slave, and 
that I had not devoted myself to merely literary pursuits. 
In the half-playful lines upon which this statement is founded, 
if I did not feel at liberty to boast of my antislavery labours 
and magnify my editorial profession, I certainly did not mean 
to underrate them, or express the shadow of a regret that 
they had occupied so large a share of my time and thought. 
The simple fact is, that I cannot be sufficiently thankful to 
the Divine Providence that so early called my attention to the 
great interests of humanity, saving me from the poor ambi- 
tions and miserable jealousies of a selfish pursuit of literary 
reputation. Up to a comparatively recent period, my writ- 
ings have been simply episodical, something apart from the 
real object and aim of my life ; and whatever of favour they 
have found with the public has come to me as a grateful 
surprise, rather than as an expected reward. As I have 
never staked all on the chances of authorship, I have been 
spared the pain of disappointment and the temptation to 
envy those, who, as men of letters, deservedly occupy a higher 
place in the popular estimation than I have ever aspired to. 
" Truly your friend, 

"John G-. Whittier. 
" Amesbury, 9th, 3d mo., 1867." 

It is known that in the same conscientious spirit he 
was unwilling to insert in his " Songs of Three Cen- 
turies " Mrs. Howe's " Battle Hymn of the Kepublic," 
but as he wrote to his assistant editor, " I got over my 
Quaker scruples, or rather stifled them, and put in the 
' Battle Hymn/ " He adds that he cannot do justice 



vii.] WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 83 

to Campbell's works in this series, " but we can't print 
his war pieces, and so we will let him slide." 

One of his points of prominence was naturally his 
position as a member of the Society of Friends. On 
the publication of the extended " Memorial History of 
Boston," in four large volumes, in 1880, edited by the 
unquestioned chief among Massachusetts historians, 
Justin Winsor, Whittier furnished by request a poem 
bearing on early local history, " The King's Missive." 
The first verse of the poem, now well known, was as 
follows : — 

" Under the great hill sloping bare 

To cove and meadow and Common lot, 
In his council chamber and oaken chair, 
Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott. 
A grave, strong man who knew no peer 
In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear 
Of God, not man, and for good or ill 
He held his trust with an iron will." 

To this poem a reply was written by the Eev. G. E. 
Ellis, president of the Massachusetts Historical Soci- 
ety, questioning its statement of facts. This led to 
some discussion between him and the author, and Whit- 
tier wrote in reply the only long prose statement, I 
believe, which was drawn from him, in a polemic way, 
after his early antislavery pamphlets. The Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society afterward put, in a man- 
ner, its seal of acceptance on this, when it chose 
Whittier as a member ; and I think that it was gener- 
ally admitted among its members that Dr. Ellis went 
rather too far in his attempt to vindicate the character 
of the Puritans for justice or moderation. Whittier 
himself, in reprinting the poem in his collected works, 



84 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

adds, tranquilly, " The publication of the ballad led to 
some discussion as to the historical truthfulness of the 
picture, but I have seen no reason to rub out any of the 
figures, or alter the lines and colours." x 

As this controversy tested Whittier in an important 
light, I give a specimen passage from his argument ; 
and all the more because he did not include it in his 
permanent collection of prose works, partly perhaps 
from its character of personal antagonism, which he 
so greatly disliked. He says : — 

"Nor can it be said that the persecution grew out of 
the 'intrusion,' ' indecency, ' and 'effrontery' of the perse- 
cuted. 

" It owed its origin to the settled purpose of the ministers 
and leading men of the colony to permit no difference of 
opinion on religious matters. They had banished the Bap- 
tists, and whipped at least one of them. They had hunted 
down Gorton and his adherents ; they had imprisoned Dr. 
Child, an Episcopalian, for petitioning the General Court for 
toleration. They had driven some of their best citizens out 
of their jurisdiction, with Anne Hutchinson, and the gifted 
minister, Wheelwright. Any dissent on the part of their own 
fellow-citizens was punished as severely as the heresy of 
strangers. 

" The charge of i indecency ' comes with ill grace from the 
authorities of the Massachusetts Colony. The first Quakers 
who arrived in Boston, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, were 
arrested on board the ship before landing, their books taken 
from them and burned by the constable, and they themselves 
brought before Deputy Governor Bellingham, in the absence 
of Endicott. This astute magistrate ordered them to be 
stripped naked and their bodies to be carefully examined, to 
see if there was not the DeviVs mark on them as witches. 
They were then sent to jail, their cell window was boarded 
up, and they were left without food or light, until the master 

i " Works," 1.381. 



vii.] WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 85 

of the vessel that brought them was ordered to take them to 
Barbadoes. When Endicott returned he thought they had 
been treated too leniently, and declared that he would have 
had them whipped. 

"After this, almost every town in the province was 
favoured with the spectacle of aged and young women stripped 
to the middle, tied to a cart-tail, and dragged through the 
streets and scourged without mercy by the constable's whip. 
It is not strange that these atrocious proceedings, in two or 
three instances, unsettled the minds of the victims. Lydia 
Ward well of Hampton, who, with her husband, had been 
reduced to almost total destitution by persecution, was sum- 
moned by the church of which she had been a member to 
appear before it to answer to the charge of non-attendance. 
She obeyed the call by appearing in the unclothed condition 
of the sufferers whom she had seen under the constable's 
whip. For this she was taken to Ipswich and stripped to 
the waist, tied to a rough post, which tore her bosom as she 
writhed under the lash, and severely scourged to the satis- 
faction of a crowd of lookers-on at the tavern. One, and 
only one, other instance is adduced in the person of Deborah 
Wilson of Salem. She had seen her friends and neighbours 
scourged naked through the street, among them her brother, 
who was banished on pain of death. She, like all Puritans, 
had been educated in the belief of the plenary inspiration of 
Scripture, and had brooded over the strange 'signs' and 
testimonies of the Hebrew prophets. It seemed to' her that 
the time had arrived for some similar demonstration, and 
that it was her duty to walk abroad in the disrobed condi- 
tion to which her friends had been subjected, as a sign and 
warning to the persecutors. Whatever of ' indecency ' there 
was in these cases was directly chargeable upon the atrocious 
persecution. At the door of the magistrates and ministers 
of Massachusetts must be laid the insanity of the conduct of 
these unfortunate women. 

" But Boston, at least, had no voluntary Godivas. The 
only disrobed women in its streets were made so by Puritan 
sheriffs and constables, who dragged them amidst jeering 
crowds at the cart-tail, stripped for the lash,- which in one 



86 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap, 

instance laid open with a ghastly gash the bosom of a young 
mother ! " 1 

It has been stated that Mr. Whittier at one time ex- 
pressed to a member of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society his intention to prepare a full and exhaustive 
history of the relation of Puritan and Quaker in the 
seventeenth century, but there seems no evidence that 
he followed up this project. 

There was undoubtedly in Whittier, amid all his quiet- 
ness of life, that impulsiveness w^hich revealed itself 
in his brilliant eye and subdued decision of manner. 
" A good deal has been said," as Mr. Robert S. Eantoul 
has admirably pointed out, " about Mr. Whittier' s fight- 
ing blood ; whether it came from Huguenot or Norman 
veins, or from his Indian-fighting ancestors who de- 
serted the ' meeting ' for the trail and camp. He had 
a good deal of the natural man left under his brown 
homespun, waistcoat, and straight collar. He had the 
reticence and presence of an Arab chief, with the eye 
of an eagle." Among all Howells's characters in fiction, 
the one who most caught Whittier' s fancy was " that 
indomitable old German, Linden," in the " Hazard of 
New Fortunes," whom he characterised, in writing 
to Mrs. Fields, as " that saint of the rather godless sect 
of dynamiters and atheists — a grand figure." 

Besides the general spirit of freedom which Whittier 
imbibed with his Quaker blood and training, he had also 
in his blood the instincts of labour, which tended to the 
elevation of the labouring class. This I know well, for I 
lent a hand, when living in the next town, to an agitation 
for the Ten Hour Bill at Amesbury, and there are various 

i Kennedy's " Whittier," 275-79. 



vii.] WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 87 

references to it in his brief letters to me. A natural 
politician of the higher sort, he rejoiced in an effort 
to bring such a bill before the state legislature, where 
it finally triumphed. Thus I find a letter, probably- 
written in 1848, but imperfectly dated, as his letters 
often were : — 

"Amesbury, 13th, 7th mo." 
" My dear Higginson : 

" Thy letter was clearly to the purpose and was read at 
the Levee, and will be published this week in the Villager : 
— Thou will see by the Villager of last week what we are 
doing about the Ten Hour Law. That must be a point in 
our elections this fall — I think we can carry it through the 
next legislature. 

I hope thou will be able to go to the Dist. Convention at 
Lowell tomorrow. Our del. is instructed to go for thee as 
one of the delegates to Pittsburg. Don't refuse. We shall 
be glad to see thee at any time. 

"Ever thine," 

"J. G. W." 

On application to the Hon. George W. Cate, he has 
refreshed my memory in regard to the details of the 
strike which led to this ten-hour agitation, and they 
are as follows : — 

"Your memory of Mr. Whittier's position in regard to 
strikes is correct. At the time of the Derby * turnout, or 
strike/ at Amesbury, which was many years ago, in '52 I 
think, Mr. Whittier was in full sympathy with the strikers. 
I think the particulars of the turnout were given quite fully 
by C. D. Wright. At that time, all the people who were 
employed in the mills were a very intelligent class of opera- 
tives, and natives. All took a deep interest in their work. 
It had for many years been their custom to go into the mill 
early and to come out for a few minutes at about ten o'clock 
a.m., and order their dinner and get a luncheon. The habit 



88 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

had been in existence for years, and had become an unwritten 
law with the operatives. Agent Derby denied them these 
privileges, and they refused to return to work. The result 
of this disagreement terminated in the old operatives leav- 
ing, and in the employment of a large number of foreigners, 
which entirely changed the character of the operatives in 
Amesbury." x 

So in regard to spiritual liberty Whittier addressed 
a poem in indignation to Pius IX. after his acceptance 
of the French aid against his own people, but he added 
in a note : — 

"The writer of these lines is no enemy of Catholics. 
He has, on more than one occasion, exposed himself to the 
censures of his Protestant brethren, by his strenuous en- 
deavours to procure indemnification for the owners of the con- 
vent destroyed near Boston. He defended the cause of the 
Irish patriots long before it had become popular in this 
country ■ and he was one of the first to urge the most liberal 
aid to the suffering and starving population of the Cath- 
olic island. The severity of his language finds its ample 
apology in the reluctant confession of one of the most emi- 
nent Romish priests, the eloquent and devoted Father 
Ventura." 

And he added a similar reproach in " The Prisoners 
at Naples/' and in " The Peace of Europe, 1852." 

As to the temperance movement, it seems a little 
amusing to find Whittier taking for the theme of his 
first prose newspaper article, " Robert Burns," and for his 
second subject, on the following week, " Temperance." 
These appeared in the Haverhill Gazette, the editor of 
which, Mr. Thayer, father of the late Professor James 
B. Thayer, of the Harvard Law School, was one of the 
earliest American editors to take up this theme. A 
IMS. Letter, Aug. 26, 1902. 



vii.] WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 89 

year later Whittier writes from Amesbury, whither lie 
had removed : " I have one item of good news from 
Haverhill. The old distillery has had its fires 
quenched at last. C. has sold out, and the building is 
to be converted into stores." Whittier himself, as I 
remember well, at Atlantic Club dinners, was one of 
the few who took no wine among that group of 
authors. 

The attitude of Whittier toward reform agitations 
in general was never better shown than in his prompt 
response to the announcement of certain limitations 
placed by George Peabody on the church built 
largely by his money in Georgetown, Mass. The 
facts were first brought to light by the New York 
Independent on Jan. 16, 1868, by the following state- 
ment : — 

" A Marred Memorial. — Mr. George Peabody, the banker, 
gave money for the erection of the Memorial Church in 
Georgetown, Mass., the town of his birth. The church 
was dedicated on the 8th of January, with interesting 
exercises, one of the striking features of which was the 
singing of the following hymn, written for the occasion by 
John G. Whittier. . . . We venture to say that if the 
poet had known the conditions which the banker saw fit to 
impose on the Memorial Church, the poem would never 
have been written, and its author's name would never have 
been lent to the occasion. A correspondent of the Inde- 
pendent writes : ' Mr. Peabody says in his letter that the 
church shall never be used for any lectures, discussions of 
political subjects, or other matters inconsistent with the gos- 
pel. I do not give his precise words, but this is the sub- 
stance. The church will be deeded to the society on the 
express condition that neither Liberty nor Temperance, nor 
any other subject of Reform, shall ever be introduced into 
the pulpit.'" 



90 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

Mr. Whittier published a card in the Boston Tran- 
script of Jan. 30, as follows : — 

" In writing the * Hymn for the Memorial Church at 
Georgetown/ the author, as his verses indicate, has sole ref- 
erence to the tribute of a brother and sister to the memory 
of a departed mother, — a tribute which seemed and still 
seems to him, in itself considered, very beautiful and appro- 
priate; but he has since seen, with surprise and sorrow, a 
letter read at the dedication, imposing certain extraordinary 
restrictions upon the society which is to occupy the house. 
It is due to himself, as a simple act of justice, to say that 
had he known of the existence of that letter previously, the 
hymn would never have been written, nor his name in any 
way connected with the proceedings." 

To Whittier, as to many, including all advocates of 
universal peace, the results of the Civil War brought 
some misgivings, through the means by which they 
were attained. He wrote thus to the woman who had 
first brought the antislavery movement into Ameri- 
can literature : — 

"To Lydia Maria Child. 

44 1875. 

" Thy confession as respects thy services in the cause of 
freedom and emancipation does not shock me at all. The 
emancipation that came by military necessity and enforced 
by bayonets was not the emancipation for which we worked 
and prayed. But, like the Apostle, I am glad the gospel of 
Freedom was preached, even if by strife and emulation. It 
cannot be said that we did it ; we, indeed, had no triumph. 
But the work itself was a success. It made us stronger 
and better men and women. Some had little to sacrifice, 
but I always felt, my dear friend, that thee had made the 
costliest offering to the cause. For thee alone, of all of us, 
had won a literary reputation which any one might have 



vii. J WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 91 

been proud of. I read all thy early work with enthusiastic 
interest, as I have all the later. Some time ago I searched 
Boston and New York for thy 'Hobomok,' and succeeded 
in finding a defaced copy. How few American books can 
compare with thy ' Philothea ' ! Why, my friend, thy rep- 
utation, in spite of the antislavery surrender of it for so 
many years, is still a living and beautiful reality. And 
after all, good as thy books are, we know thee to be better 
than any book. I wish thee could know how proudly and 
tenderly thee is loved and honoured by the best and wisest of 
the land." x 

Whittier was the only one of his immediate literary 
circle, except Fields the publisher, who unequivocally 
supported woman suffrage from the beginning of the 
agitation. It was of course easier for members of the 
Society of Friends to do this than for others, yet many 
Friends opposed it, even vehemently. He wrote as 
early as 1839, " I go the whole length as regards the 
rights of women " ; and he wrote again to the Woman's 
Suffrage Convention at Worcester, in 1850 : — 

/ " Come what may, Nature is inexorable ; she will reverse 
none of her laws at the bidding of male or female conven- 
tions ; and men and women, with or without the right of 
suffrage, will continue to be men and women still. In the 
event of the repeal of certain ungenerous, not to' say un- 
manly, enactments, limiting and abridging the rights and 
privileges of women, we may safely confide in the adaptive 
powers of Nature. She will take care of the new fact in 
her own way, and reconcile it to the old, through the opera- 
tion of her attractive or repellent forces. Let us, then, not 
be afraid to listen to the claims and demands of those who, 
in some sort at least, represent the feelings and interests of 
those nearest and dearest to us. Let Oliver ask for more. 
It is scarcely consistent with our assumed superiority to 
imitate the horror and wide-orbed consternation of Mr. 
Bumble and his parochial associates, on a similar occasion." 

i Pickard's " Whittier," II. 603-04. 



92 JOHN GREENLEAE WHITTIER [chap. 

Later, when the movement had got farther on, and 
he was invited to a convention on the subject, held 
at Newport, E.I., on Aug. 25, 1869, he replied thus 
explicitly and also wisely : — 

" Amesbury, Mass., 12th, 8th Month, 1869. 

"I have received thy letter inviting me to attend the 
Convention in behalf of Woman's Suffrage, at Newport, 
R.I., on the 25th inst. I do not see how it is possible 
for me to accept the invitation ; and, were I to do so, the 
state of my health would prevent me from taking such 
a part in the meeting as would relieve me from the re- 
sponsibility of seeming to sanction anything in its action 
which might conflict with my own views of duty or policy. 
Yet I should do myself great injustice if I did not embrace 
this occasion to express my general sympathy with the move- 
ment. I have seen no good reason why mothers, wives, and 
daughters should not have the same right of person, prop- 
erty, and citizenship which fathers, husbands, and brothers 
have. 

" The sacred memory of mother and sister ; the wisdom 
and dignity of women of my own religious communion who 
have been accustomed to something like equality in rights 
as well as duties ; my experience as a co-worker with noble 
and self-sacrificing women, as graceful and helpful in their 
household duties as firm and courageous in their public 
advocacy of unpopular truth ; the steady friendships which 
have inspired and strengthened me, and the reverence and 
respect which I feel for human nature, irrespective of sex, — - 
compel me to look with something more than acquiescence 
on the efforts you are making. I frankly confess that I am 
not able to foresee all the consequences of the great social 
and political change proposed, but of this I am, at least, 
sure, it is always safe to do right, and the truest expediency 
is simple justice. I can understand, without sharing, the 
misgivings of those who fear that, when the vote drops 
from woman's hand into the ballot-box, the beauty and 
sentiment, the bloom and sweetness, of womankind will go 



vii.] WHITTIER AS A SOCIAL REFORMER 93 

with it. But in this matter it seems to me that we can 
trust Nature. Stronger than statutes or conventions, she 
will be conservative of all that the true man loves and 
honours in woman. Here and there may be found an equiv- 
ocal, unsexed Chevalier d'Eon, but the eternal order and 
fitness of things will remain. I have no fear that man will 
be less manly or woman less womanly when they meet on 
terms of equality before the law. 

" On the other hand, I do not see that the exercise of the 
ballot by woman will prove a remedy for all the evils of 
which she justly complains. It is her right as truly as 
mine, and when she asks for it, it is something less than 
manhood to withhold it. But, unsupported by a more 
practical education, higher aims, and a deeper sense of the 
responsibilities of life and duty, it is not likely to prove a 
blessing in her hands any more than in man's. 

" With great respect and hearty sympathy, I am very truly 
thy friend." 

Again he wrote, of a speech by that eminently clear- 
headed and able woman, Miss Alice Freeman, now 
Mrs. G. H. Palmer: — 

" Amesbury, 7th mo., 1881. 

" Miss Freeman's speech was eloquent and wise — the best 
thing in the Institute. Perhaps even Francis Parkman 
might think she could be safely trusted to vote."' 

These opinions, it will be seen, cover an interval of 
nearly half a century. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PERSONAL QUALITIES 

That acute, if not always impartial, observer, Mr. 
George W. Smalley, says of the most famous of modern 
English Quakers, John Bright, " There was no courtlier 
person than this Quaker, none whose manners were 
more perfect. ... If there had been no standard of 
good manners, he would have created one. . . . Swift 
said, ' Whosoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is 
the best-bred man in the company.' " 1 

Tried by this last standard, at least, Whittier was 
unsurpassed; and living in America, where artificial 
standards are at least secondary, he never found him- 
self misplaced. The relation between himself and 
others rested wholly on real grounds, and could be 
more easily computed. Personally I met him first in 
1843, when the excitement of the " Latimer case " still 
echoed through Massachusetts, and the younger aboli- 
tionists, of whom I was one, were full of the joy of 
eventful living. I was then nineteen, and saw the poet 
for the first time at an eating-house known as Camp- 
bell's, and then quite a resort for reformers of all sorts, 
and incidentally of economical college students. Some 
one near me said, " There is Whittier." I saw before 
me a man of striking personal appearance; tall, 
slender, with olive complexion, black hair, straight, 

i " London Letters," I. 124. 
94 



chap, vin.] PERSONAL QUALITIES 95 

black eyebrows, brilliant eyes and an Oriental, Semitic 
cast of countenance. This was Whittier at thirty-five. 
Appetite vanished, and I resolved to speak to him, 
then or never. I watched till he rose from the table ; 
and then advancing, said with boyish enthusiasm and, 
I doubt not, with boyish awkwardness also, " I should 
like to shake hands with the author of ' Massachusetts 
to Virginia.'" The poet, who was then, as always, 
one of the shyest of men, looked up as if frightened, 
then broke into a kindly smile, and said briefly, "Thy 
name, friend ? " I gave it, we shook hands, and that 
was all ; but to me it was like touching a hero's shield ; 
and though I have since learned to count the friend- 
ship of Whittier as one of the great privileges of 
my life, yet nothing has ever displaced the recollec- 
tion of that first boyish interview. 

In comparing his whole life with that of his early 
friend Garrison, one must observe the fact that, while 
there was but a slight difference in their ages, Garrison 
was at first the leader, Whittier the follower. On 
the other hand, we notice that differences of tempera- 
ment soon showed themselves and told both upon 
their careers and their memories. Partly as a result 
of this, each had a certain advantage with a later gen- 
eration. Whittier, for instance, was childless ; while 
Garrison left behind him a family of children to carry 
on his unfinished work, to write his memoirs and 
to do honour to his name by their inheritance of his 
qualities. It is difficult, however, to read those very 
memoirs without seeing that Garrison encountered in 
life some drawbacks which grew out of his own temper- 
ament, that he ceased in some cases to hold the warm 
friendships he had made, and lost the alliance of 



96 JOHN GKEENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

many of his early supporters ; while Whittier during 
his whole life rarely lost a friend. That was true of him 
in life which Mr. Wendell has keenly said of him since 
his death, that " though a lifelong and earnest reformer, 
he is the least irritating of reformers to those who 
chance not to agree with him." * Garrison, again, had 
the experience, almost unique among reformers, of tri- 
umphing, as it were, in spite of himself and by ways 
which ran precisely counter to his own immediate 
methods and even predictions. A non-resistant, he 
saw his ends effected by war ; a disunionist, he lived 
to join in the chorus of triumph over the reestablish- 
ment of the American Union. Step by step, "Whittier 
saw his own political opinions established ; while Gar- 
rison lived to be content in seeing his specific counsels 
set aside and his aims accomplished by other methods 
than his own. 

One of the most permanent qualities always to be 
relied upon in Whittier was his generosity in all mat- 
ters of money, a thing peculiarly valuable in one who 
had learned in early life, by privation, to count his 
dollars very carefully. The following note to me, in 
regard to helping a young authoress, who had planned 
to go to her father, then in England, will well illus- 
trate this. The note came undated, but was received 
in July, 1870. 

" My dear H , I quite agree with thee as regards our 

friend and wd. be glad to help her. I have reserved 

the sum of $50 for her when she needs it to go to England ; 
but if she requires it now especially, I shall be happy to 
forward it at once, either to her or to thee, in which case 
thee can say that th.ee have rec'd that sum of me for her 

1 Wendell's " Literary History of America," p. 359. 



viii.] PERSONAL QUALITIES 97 

benefit, which will leave her but $50 to repay [she being 
then $100 in debt]. 

" I got thy note as regards Boutwell [some political mat- 
ter] yesterday, and shall write as thee suggest. I wish I 
could only straighten things out, in this snarl of a world. 
God help us ! We can do but little, but that little shall 
not be withheld on our part. 

" Always truly thy frd. 

"John G. Whittier. 

" [P.S.] Advise me whether to send the money to her or 
to thee." 

The very letter enclosing the money suggested also 
another object of interest, in a similar direction. 

Some years later, on the marriage of the first young 
lady, this gift was duplicated, as seen by the follow- 
ing note — having the same combination, as before, of 
philanthropy and politics : — 

" Oak Knoll, Danvers, 3d mo., 26, '78. 

" My dear Higginson, — Thanks for thy letter. I have 

mislaid 's address. . . . Will thee drop me a postal 

to tell me? I will send her $50 as a wedding gift, as thee 
suggest. I am glad she is soon to escape from her desk 
drudgery. " Thine always, 

"J. G. W. 

" If there is a change in the Cabinet I hope Evarts will 
go. He may be a lawyer — he seems to be nothing else. 
He has about as much magnetism as one of Dexter's wooden 
images. Washburn, late minister to France, would do well 
in the Cabinet, I think." 

This was in early life, but after the sales of his 
poems became lucrative his income was large in pro- 
portion to his needs, — his personal expenditures in- 
creasing but slightly, — and he was, as his friends 
knew, most generous in giving. In this he was stimu- 



98 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, [chap. 

lated perhaps by the extraordinary example of his 
old friend, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, whose letters he 
edited, and who used to deny herself many of the 
common comforts of advancing years in order that she 
might give to the works which interested her ; yet 
Whittier was distinctly treading a similar path when 
he subscribed regularly and largely to General Arm- 
strong's great enterprise for the instruction of the 
blacks and Indians at Hampton ; and apart from this 
he was writing such letters as the following, all the 
time : — 

"Amesbury, 16th, 7th mo., 1870. 

" Dear Higginson, — Enclosed find cheque for Fifty 
Dollars, $50. [This was for a person known to both of us.] 
" I see by the Transcript that Phebe Cary lies very ill in 
Newport — dangerously, even. I do not know her address. 
I wish thee wd. find out, & call, & enquire about her, & 
leave her a message from me of love and sympathy, if she 
is in a condition to receive it. Poor girl ! she gave herself 
to the care of her sister too unreservedly. 
" Always & truly " 
"thy fd 

" John G-. Whittier." 

The following is the account given of his kindness 
to a man, who described it anonymously in the Liter- 
ary World for December 1877 : — 

" When I was a young man trying to get an education, I 
went about the country peddling sewing silk to help myself 
through college, and one Saturday night found me at Ames- 
bury, a stranger and without a lodging-place. It happened 
that the first house at which I called was Whittier's, and he 
himself came to the door. On hearing my request, he said 
he was very sorry that he could not keep me, but it was 
Quarterly Meeting, and his house was full. He, however, 



viii.] PEESONAL QUALITIES 99 

took the trouble to show me to a neighbour's, where he left 
me ; but that did not seem to wholly suit his ideas of hospi- 
tality, for in the course of the evening he made his appearance, 
saying that it had occurred to him that he could sleep on a 
lounge, and give up his own bed to me, — which it is, per- 
haps, needless to say, was not allowed. But this was not 
all. The next morning he came again, with the suggestion 
that I might perhaps like to attend meeting, inviting me to 
go with him ; and he gave me a seat next to himself. The 
meeting lasted an hour, during which there was not a word 
spoken by any one. We all sat in silence that length of time, 
then all arose, shook hands, and dispersed ; and I remember 
it as one of the best meetings I ever attended." x 

No one came nearer to Whittier in all good deeds or 
in private intimacy than the late Mrs. Mary B. Claflin, 
well known in Boston and Washington, in both of 
which cities she exercised profuse hospitality, during 
the public life of her husband, the Hon. William 
Claflin. No book yields such a store of private anec- 
dotes about Whittier as her little work, "Personal 
Eecollections of John G. Whittier." Mrs. Claflin 
quotes one adviser, who said " I would rather give a 
man or woman on the verge of a great moral lapse a 
marked copy of Whittier than any other book in our 
language. " She goes on to describe a young and over- 
sensitive college girl, overcome with the strain of her 
new life, who went to the president, and said, " It is 
of no use, I cannot go on, my life is a failure ; I must 
leave college and go home." The tactful president 
replied, " Go to the library and take Whittier's poems, 
sit down by your window and read ' The Grave by the 
Lake, ' then come and I will talk with you. " The 
young girl came back in an hour with a changed 

i Kennedy's "Whittier, " pp. 167-68. 

ILrfC. 



100 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

countenance. She said, "I will overcome the ob- 
stacles, I will go on with my college course. I be- 
lieve, after reading Whittier, that life is worth the 
effort. » 

Mrs. Claflin adds another instance of a woman in 
prison, utterly wild with rage and excitement, who 
was wholly quieted by being persuaded to sit down 
and read Whittier' s poem on a The Eternal Good- 
ness." 

These were Whittier's relations with those poorer or 
humbler than himself. He never visited princes, and 
so was not tested much in that direction, but I re- 
member an occasion when an emperor once visited 
him. While Dom Pedro II., formerly emperor of 
Brazil, was in the United States in 1876, I had the 
pleasure of meeting him at George Bancroft's house 
in Newport, E.I., and remember well the desire 
that he expressed to see Whittier, and the com- 
parative indifference with which he received our 
conversation on all other subjects. He had, it seems, 
translated Whittier's "Cry of a Lost Soul" into 
Portuguese. When, on June 14, they met at the 
Eadical Club, at Eev. J. T. Sargent's, on Chestnut 
Street, the interview was thus described in Mrs. Sar- 
gent's record of the club : — 

" When the emperor arrived, the other guests had already 
assembled. Sending up his card, his Majesty followed it 
with the quickness of an enthusiastic schoolboy; and his 
first question, after somewhat hastily paying his greetings, 
was for Mr. Whittier. The poet stepped forward to meet 
his imperial admirer, who would fain have caught him in 
his arms and embraced him warmly, with all the enthusi- 
asm of the Latin race. The diffident Friend seemed some- 
what abashed at so demonstrative a greeting, but with a 



vin.] PERSONAL QUALITIES 101 

cordial grasp of the hand drew Dom Pedro to the sofa, where 
the two chatted easily and with the familiarity of old 
friends. 

" The rest of the company allowed them to enjoy their 
tete-a-tete for some half-hour, when they ventured to inter- 
rupt it, and the emperor joined very heartily in a general 
conversation. 

" As the emperor was driving away, he was seen standing 
erect in his open barouche, and * waving his hat, with a 
seeming hurrah, at the house which held his venerable 
friend.' » x 

Mrs. Claflin tells us that Whittier, when her guest 
in his later life, received many letters — sometimes 
fifty — by the morning's mail, and describes one 
occasion where he lingered over a letter with a look 
of deep sympathy, and added " Such letters greatly 
humiliate me." It came from a lonely woman on a 
remote farm among the hills of New Hampshire, who 
aimed to tell him what his poems had done for her, 
and said : — 

" In my darkest moments I have found light and comfort 
in your poems, which I always keep by my side, and as I 
never expect to have the privilege of looking into your face, 
I feel that I must tell you, before I leave this world, what 
you have been through your writings to one, and I have no 
doubt to many, a longing heart and homesick soul. I have 
never been in a place so dark and hopeless that I could not 
find light and comfort and hope in your poems, and when I 
go into my small room and close the door upon the worries 
and perplexing cares that constantly beset me, and sit down 
by my window that looks out over the hills which have 
been my only companions, I never fail to find in the volume 
which is always by my side some word of peace and com- 
fort to my longing heart." 

1 Mrs. Sargent's " Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical 
Club," pp. 301-02. 



102 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

It was such communications as these which com- 
pleted the influence of temperament, and made him 
appear to the world even more shy than he was. He 
used to say to Mrs. Claflin : — 

" What does thee think women make such silly speeches 
to me for ? It makes me feel like a fool. A woman said to 
me yesterday, ' Mr. Whittier, your smile is a benediction/ 
As I was walking across the floor at the Eadical Club, a 
woman stopped me in the middle of the parlour among all 
the folks, and said, ' I've long wished to see you, Mr. Whit- 
tier, to ask what you thought of the subjective and the 
objective. ' Why, I thought the woman was crazy, and I 
said, 'I don't know anything about either of 'em.'" 

A young friend asked him one day if Mr. Fields's 
story were true about the woman who made her way 
to his library under pretence of conversing with him 
upon literary topics. "Mr. Fields said her conver- 
sation became very personal and tender, and you 
remarked, i I do not understand thee, I do not under- 
stand thee; thee had better leave the room.' Was 
that really true, Mr. Whittier ? " asked the young girl. 
With a very funny twinkle in his eye, he replied, 
"Does thee think, Mary, I could treat a lady in so 
ungentlemanly a manner as that?" That was the 
only response Mary could elicit. 

Shy and self-withdrawing in conversation although 
Whittier might be, he was never caught at a disadvan- 
tage and was always ready with some pithy reply. If 
he had any one firm rule, it was to avoid making a 
speech, and yet when, being called on unexpectedly 
to speak at a private service on the death of Charles 
Sumner, he rose and told off-hand a story of a Scotch 
colonel, who, being interred with military honours, had 



viii.] PEKSONAL QUALITIES 103 

an unfriendly regiment detailed to fire a salute over 
his grave, seeing which, an onlooker said, "If the 
colonel could have known this, he would not have 
died." — "Sol feel," said Mr. Whittier. " If my friend 
Sumner could have known that I should have been 
asked to speak at his memorial service, he would not 
have died." And he resumed his seat. When, after 
the meeting, a friend spoke to him of the breathless 
silence which pervaded the audience, that they might 
catch every word, the poet quickly replied, "Don't 
thee think they would have listened just as attentively 
if Balaam's animal had spoken ? " 

The element of humour, which early showed itself 
in Whittier, was undoubtedly one influence which 
counteracted whatever element of narrowness was to 
be derived from his Quaker training. One sees how 
a fine mind may be limited in influence through the 
want of humour when considering such a case as that 
of the Eev. Dr. William Ellery Channing, for instance, 
whose writings, otherwise powerful, have gradually 
diminished in influence through such a deficiency. 
Possibly even Tufts and Burroughs may have been in 
some degree useful in their post-mortem career, by 
helping to cultivate this trait in the young poet. That 
he read Sterne and Swift with enjoyment, we know. 

There is little evidence, however, that his early 
writings showed any trace of this gift. The dozen 
poems which he had written at eighteen, and the 
ninety-six printed within two years (1827-28) in the 
Haverhill Gazette alone, were apparently quite seri- 
ous and sometimes solemn. "Exile," "Benevolence," 
" Ocean," " The Deity," " The Sicilian Vespers," " The 
Earthquake," "The Missionary," "Judith and Holo- 



104 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

femes," these were the themes which, with much 
rhetoric and personification, were handled by the min- 
strel in his teens. 

" Diffuse thy charms, Benevolence ! " 

was the cry, or more elaborately : — 

" Hail, heavenly gift within the human breast ! 
Germ of unnumber'd virtues ! n 

This was the prevailing tone which had previously 
reached its climax in that humbler poet in England, 
whose appeal began with : — 

" Inoculation ! heavenly maid." 

Coleridge and the rest of his circle went through this 
period of impassioned declamation, and Whittier could 
not hope to escape it. 

At the dinners of the Atlantic Club, during the first 
few years of the magazine, I can testify that Whittier 
appeared as he always did, simple, manly, and unbe- 
comingly shy, yet reticent and quiet. If he was over- 
shadowed in talk by Holmes at one end and by Lowell 
at the other, he was in the position of every one else, 
notably Longfellow; but he had plenty of humour and 
critical keenness and there was no one whose summing 
up of the affairs afterward was better worth hearing. 
On the noted occasion, — the parting dinner given to 
Dr. and Mrs. Stowe, — the only one where wine was 
excluded save under disguise, I remember Whittier's 
glances of subdued amusement while Lowell at the 
end of the table was urging upon Mrs. Stowe the great 
superiority of " Tom Jones " to all other novels, and 
Holmes at the other end was demonstrating to the 
Rev. Dr. Stowe that all swearing really began in the 



viii.] PERSONAL QUALITIES 105 

too familiar use of holy words in the pulpit. His 
unmoved demeanour, as of a delegate sent from the 
Society of Friends to represent the gospel of silence 
among the most vivacious talkers, recalled Hazlitt's 
description of the supper parties at Charles Lamb's — 
parties which included Mrs. Reynolds, " who being of 
a quiet turn, loved to hear a noisy debate." l 

1 Hazlitt's essay, " On the Conversation of Authors." 



CHAPTER IX 

WHITTIER AT HOME 

One of Whittier's biographers, Mr. William Sloane 
Kennedy, who has also been in a manner a biographer 
of Whitman, rather surprises the reader by an unex- 
pected admission in comparing the two. He says of 
Whittier, "He is democratic, not so powerfully and 
broadly as Whitman, but more unaffectedly and sin- 
cerely." It is a concession of some value, the critic 
having been one of Whitman's warmest admirers and 
most generous advocates, and it seems to me to touch 
the truth very well. Certainly no one could see Whit- 
tier in contact with his fellow-citizens of a country vil- 
lage, without being struck by the genuineness and 
healthiness, so to speak, of the relations between them. 
If I may repeat my own words used elsewhere, I should 
say that there was something most satisfactory in the 
position of the poet among the village people. He was 
their pride and their joy, yet he lived as simply as any 
one, was careful and abstemious, reticent rather than 
exuberant in manner, and met them wholly on matter- 
of-fact ground. He could sit on a barrel and discuss 
the affairs of the day with the people who came to the 
" store," but he did not read them his verses. I was 
once expressing regrets for his ill health, in talking 
with one of the leading citizens of Amesbury, and 
found that my companion could not agree with me; 

106 



chap, ix.] WHITTIER AT HOME 107 

he thought that Whittier's ill health had helped him 
in the end, for it had "kept him from engaging in 
business/' and had led him to writing poetry, which 
had given him reputation outside of the town. That 
poetry was anything but a second choice, perhaps a 
necessary evil, did not seem to have occurred to my 
informant. Had he himself lost his health and been 
unable to sell groceries, who knows but he too might 
have taken up with the Muses? It suggested the 
Edinburgh citizen who thought that Sir Walter Scott 
might have been " sic a respectable mon " had he stuck 
to his original trade of law advocate. 

I will borrow from what I have elsewhere written a 
picture of the Whittier household as I saw it, more 
than fifty years ago, when residing at Newburyport 
in his neighbourhood. 

" It was but a short walk or drive of a few miles nom 
my residence to his home ; or, better still, it implied a sail 
or row up the beautiful river, passing beneath the suspen- 
sion bridge at Deer Island, to where the woods called ' The 
Laurels ' spread themselves on one side, and the twin villages 
of Salisbury and Amesbury on the other. ... 

" To me, who sought Whittier for his poetry as well as 
his politics, nothing could have been more delightful than 
his plain abode with its exquisite Quaker neatness. His 
placid mother, rejoicing in her two gifted children, presided 
with few words at the hospitable board, whose tablecloth 
and napkins rivalled her soul in whiteness ; and with her 
was the brilliant ' Lizzie/ so absolutely the reverse, or com- 
plement, of her brother that they seemed between them to 
make one soul. She was as plain in feature as he was hand- 
some, except that she had a pair of great, luminous dark 
eyee, always flashing with fun or soft with emotion, and 
often changing with lightning rapidity from the one expres- 
sion to the other; her nose was large and aquiline, while 



108 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

his was almost Grecian; and she had odd motions of the 
head, so that her glances seemed shot at you, like sudden 
javelins, from each side of a prominent network. Her com- 
plexion was sallow, not rich brunette like his ; and whereas 
he spoke seldom and with difficulty, her gay raillery was 
unceasing, and was enjoyed by him as much as by anybody, 
so that he really appeared to have transferred to her the 
expression of his own opinions. . . . The lively utterances 
thus came with double force upon the auditor, and he could 
not fail to go out strengthened and stimulated. Sometimes 
the Whittiers had guests; and * Lizzie' delighted to tell 
how their mother was once met at the door by two plump 
maidens, who announced that they had come from Ohio 
mainly to see her son. She explained that he was in Boston. 
No matter ; they would come in and await his return. But 
he might be away a week. No matter ; they would willingly 
wait that time for such a pleasure. So in they came. They 
proved to be Alice and Phoebe Cary, whose earlier poems, 
which had already preceded them, were filled with dirges 
and despair; but they were the merriest of housemates, 
and as the poet luckily returned next day, they stayed as 
long as they pleased, and were welcome." 

It is hardly fair, however, to give this last incident 
without giving the letter by which the unwary bachelor 
poet brought this visit upon his household. He had 
actually invited these frank young ladies by the fol- 
lowing letter, not put in print for many years after, 
and addressed to that general friend — and occasional 
enemy — of all literary people, Eufus Wilmot G-riswold, 
of New York : — 

u Amesbury, 21st June, 1850. 

" My Dear fr. Griswold : — I learn from my friend F. 
W. Kellogg that Alice and Phoebe Cary, of Ohio, are on 
their way to the East, and would be glad to see them at 
my place if they come to Boston. Presuming that thou 
wilt see them in N.Y. I have taken the liberty to invite 



ix.] WHITTIER AT HOME 109 

them, through thee, to call on me. I have been quite ill 
this spring and my sister also is an invalid, and we see little 
company, but I should feel sorry to have the 'sweet 
singers' of the West so near and not see them. 

" Dost ever come to Boston ? I should be very glad to 
see thee at Amesbury. I have a pleasant and grateful rec- 
ollection of our acquaintance in N.Y. and Boston. I shall 
be obliged to thee if thou wilt kindly remember me to Tuck- 
erman. I like his last book exceedingly, and shall notice it 
soon in the Era, 

" Thine cordially, 

"John G. Whittier." 1 

A lady who had been long a neighbour once described 
Whittier' s parlour fire : — 

" That fire was a perpetual source of pleasure and annoy- 
ance to us all. It was an old-fashioned Franklin stove, that 
smoked on the slightest provocation, and scattered the ashes 
over the hearth. At the same time it had a habit of throw- 
ing out the most charming gleams and shadows, especially 
if driftwood was being burned. Mr. Whittier was very 
jealous of any one else tending or poking the fire. Often I 
have unconsciously taken the tongs to touch up a brand, 
when his hand would stay mine, and he would say, ' Thee 
must not touch that, it is just right/ and perhaps the next 
minute he would have the tongs and do just what I had at- 
tempted. I have frequently gone in at twilight and found 
him lying on the lounge, watching the flitting shadows, and 
repeating aloud from some favourite author, generally Scott 
or Burns. His mood and conversation at such times were 
particularly delightful. The beautiful poem, ' Burning Drift- 
wood ' was doubtless inspired by such experiences." 2 

One of the very best delineations of Whittier by 
one of those who approached him on the public or 
semi-public side is that written by the Hon. Eobert 
S. Eantoul of Salem, Mass. : — 

i Letters of R. W. Griswold, pp. 266-67. 2 Pickard, II. 745. 



110 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

"Mr. Whittier was self-contained. In the company of 
persons whom he did not care for — who could not draw 
him out — his mind seemed to furnish him with almost 
nothing to say. He had no small talk. Where there was 
nothing in common he could be as remote and silent as a 
mountain peak. ... For himself, he was transparent in his 
expressions and he sought the communion of those only who 
met him on his own ground. Insincerity was incivility. . . . 

" He could no more face a mixed company than he could 
face an audience. It was the lack of touch — of correlation 
— that seemed to disturb him. Miss Bremer said of him 
that he could cheerfully confront martyrdom, but shrank 
from the ordinary requirements of social intercourse. . . . 

" Later, in 1882, when I was a member of the Republi- 
can State Central Committee, I was designated to conduct 
Mr. Whittier from his rooms in Boston on the morning of 
the Music Hall convention which put Robinson forward for 
the defeat of Butler, and I was specially charged to place 
him in a conspicuous seat near the front of the platform, 
that all Massachusetts might see that he was with us. By 
dint of much entreaty and persuasion I finally prevailed. 
No man was better entitled to a high seat in the party san- 
hedrim at that time, nor more worthy to be held up as the 
high priest of Massachusetts Republicanism. But the pro- 
ceedings were scarcely opened when I found his chair was 
vacant. He had stolen away to a hiding-place beside the 
great organ, where he could see and hear without being dis- 
covered, and the convention from that time on, so far as its 
visual faculties availed, was without its poet." 

We have, through Mrs. Claflin, also Whittier' s own 
reports as to his personal conversations with fellow- 
authors. For instance, as he was driving one day with 
Emerson, the latter pointed out a small, unpainted 
house by the roadside, and said : — 

" ' There lives an old Calvinist in that house, and she says 
she prays for me every day. I am glad she does. I pray for 



ix.] WHITTIER AT HOME 111 

myself.' ' Does thee?' said Whittier. 'What does thee 
pray for, friend Emerson ? ' 

" ' Well,' replied Emerson, * when I first open my eyes 
upon the morning meadows, and look out upon the beautiful 
world, I thank God that I am alive, and that I live so near 
Boston/ " 

In one of their conversations, Mr. Emerson re- 
marked that the world had not yet seen the highest 
development of manhood. 

" ' Does thee think so ? ' said Whittier. * I suppose thee 
would admit that Jesus Christ is the highest development 
our world has seen 1 ' 

11 * Yes, yes, but not the highest it will see. 7 

" ' Does thee think the world has yet reached the ideals 
the Christ has set for mankind ? ' 

" ' No, no,' said Emerson : * I think not.' 

" * Then is it not the part of wisdom to be content with 
what has been given us, till we have lived up to that ideal 1 
And when we need something higher, Infinite Wisdom will 
supply our needs.' " 

Amesbury, like Concord, had its individual oddities ; 
and the two poets liked to compare notes upon them. 
Whittier had a neighbour whose original remarks he 
loved to repeat, and Emerson once said, "That man 
ought to read Plato," and offered him a volume through 
Whittier. It was kept for a while and then returned 
with, the remark, " There are some good things in that 
book. I find that this Mr. Plato has a good many of 
my ideas." 

Whittier gave to Mrs. Claflin, also, this account of 
his only advance toward personal intercourse with 
Hawthorne : — 

"He said, 'Thee knows I am not skilled in visits and 
small talk, but I wanted to make a friendly call on Haw- 



112 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

thorne, and one morning — it chanced to be an ill-fated 
morning for this purpose — I sallied forth, and on reaching 
the house was ushered into a lugubrious-looking room where 
Hawthorne met me, evidently in a lugubrious state of mind. 
" ' In rather a sepulchral tone of voice he bade me good- 
morning, and asked me to be seated opposite him, and we 
looked at each other and remarked upon the weather ; then 
came an appalling silence and the cold chills crept down my 
back, and after a moment or two I got up and said, " I think 
I will take a short walk." I took my walk and returned to 
bid him good morning much to my relief, and I have no 
doubt to his.' " 

With. Mrs. Stowe he would sit till the small hours 
of the morning, and till the lights burned blue, to talk 
about psychical mysteries, and relate stories of ghosts 
and spirit rappings and manifestations. They " wooed 
the courteous ghosts " together ; but he said, " Much 
as I have wooed them, they never appear to me. Mrs. 
Stowe is more fortunate — the spirits sometimes come 
at her bidding, but never at mine — and what wonder ? 
It would be a foolish spirit that did not prefer her 
company to that of an old man like me." They would 
repeat, says Mrs. Claflin, the most marvellous stories 
of ghostly improbabilities, apparently for the time 
being believing every word. With Mrs. Elizabeth 
Stuart Phelps Ward, who had written on the possible 
employments of another life, he would discuss that 
theme with a relish, but would add, " Elizabeth, thee 
would not be happy in heaven unless thee could go 
missionary to the other place, now and then." 

Quakers, if genuine, usually have rather a predilec- 
tion for fighters. Garibaldi was one of Whittier's 
heroes, so was General Gordon, so was young Colonel 
Shaw; and so was John Bright, who fought with 









ix.] WHITTIER AT HOME 113 

words only. Whittier wrote at his death to Mrs. 
Fields : — 

" Spring is here to-day, warm, birdful. ... It seems 
strange that I am alive to welcome her when so many have 
passed away with the winter, and among them that stal- 
wartest of Englishmen, John Bright, sleeping now in the 
daisied grounds of Rochdale, never more to move the world 
with his surpassing eloquence. How I regret that I have 
never seen him ! We had much in common in our religious 
faith, our hatred of war and oppression. His great genius 
seemed to me to be always held firmly in hand by a sense 
of duty, and by the practical common sense of a shrewd man 
of business. He fought through life like an old knight- 
errant, but without enthusiasm. He had no personal ideals. 
I remember once how he remonstrated with me for my admi- 
ration for General Gordon. He looked upon that wonder- 
ful personality as a wild fighter, a rash adventurer, doing 
evil that good might come. He could not see him as I saw 
him, giving his life for humanity, alone and unfriended, in 
that dreadful Soudan. He did not like the idea of fighting 
Satan with Satan's weapons. Lord Salisbury said truly that 
John Bright was the greatest orator England had produced, 
and his eloquence was only called out by what he regarded 
as the voice of God in his soul." * 

It is an interesting fact that one of the best' pictures 
ever drawn of Whittier in his home life is that drawn 
by Hayne, the Southern poet, who once visited him. 

" So 'neath the Quaker poet's tranquil roof, 
From all deep discords of the world aloof, 
I sit once more and measured converse hold, 
With him whose nobler thoughts are rhythmic gold ; 
See his deep brows half-puckered in a knot, 
O'er some hard problem of our mortal lot, 
Or a dream soft as May winds of the south, 
Waft a girl's sweetness 'round his firm, set mouth. 

iMrs. Fields's ''Whittier," pp. 50-51. 
I 



114 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. ix. 

44 Or, should he deem wrong threats the public weal, 
Lo, the whole man seems girt with flashing steel ; 
His glance a sword-thrust and his words of ire, 
Like thunder tones from some old prophet's lyre. 
Or by the hearthstone, when the day is done, 
Mark swiftly lanced a sudden shaft of fun ; 
The short quick laugh, the smartly smitten knees, 
Are all sure tokens of a mind at ease. 

" God's innocent pensioners in the woodland dim, 
The fields, the pastures, know and trust in him, 
And in their love, his lonely heart is blest, 
Our pure hale-minded Cowper of the West." 



CHAPTEE X 

THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 

Whittier, as has already been seen, was born and 
brought up in the Society of Friends, of which he 
always remained a faithful member. In trying to 
solve the problem, how far he felt himself strictly 
bound by the usages of his Society, the following 
anecdote, as told by Mr. Pickard, is suggestive. On 
the night before the burning of Pennsylvania Hall in 
1838, in Philadelphia, as an antislavery headquarters, 
there occurred the marriage of Angelina Grimke to 
Theodore D. Weld, both being afterwards prominent 
antislavery reformers. Miss Grimke was a South Car- 
olina Quakeress, who had liberated her own slaves, and 
was thenceforward known far and wide as an anti- 
slavery lecturer, but her proposed husband was not a 
Quaker. At the time of her wedding, Whittier, who 
then edited the Freeman, was invited to attend ; but 
as she was marrying " out of society," he did not think 
it fitting that he should be present at the ceremony. 
He nevertheless reconciled it with his conscience to 
escort a young lady to the door, and to call on the 
wedded pair, next day, with a congratulatory poem. 1 
This fairly indicates the hold his early religious 
training had upon him, when the question was one of 
outward observances alone. 

In reading, not merely Whittier's meditative and 
spiritual poems, but the very texts and preludes which 

iPickard's "Whittier," I. 235. 
115 



116 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

are prefixed to them, one feels the immense advantage 
enjoyed by those brought up in the Society of Friends, 
as to a simpler and therefore more sacred use of the 
Hebrew and Christian scriptures, than was possible to 
those trained in the more rigorous and severe methods 
which prevailed so largely in his youth among the evan- 
gelical sects. His citations of passages are superb in 
their discrimination; the words of Ezekiel and Esdras 
seem greater and profounder than those of his verses 
that follow ; and yet this is no truer of them than of 
the prefatory prelude taken from St. Augustine, or 
George Fox, or the Hymns of the Brahmo-Somaj. 
This is as it should be ; that the poet's gift should 
show itself even in the texts of his sermons ; yet no 
one who had not learned to reverence the Inward Light 
as the Society of Friends did, could follow it, even to 
the selection of good texts. 

He was a firm but liberal Quaker, would carry out to 
the utmost the original standard, regarded as useless 
the division between Orthodox and Hicksite, and pre- 
dicted that tendency to reunion which now shows it- 
self. He was, on the other hand, never quite recon- 
ciled to the new departures in manner and observance 
which have marked the last twenty years. When 
asked as to Quaker variations from the ordinary gram- 
mar, he replied, according to Mrs. Claflin : — 

" l It has been the manner of speech of my people for two 
hundred years ; it was my mother's language, and it is good 
enough for me ; I shall not change my grammar. ' So in com- 
ing from a Quaker meeting one day in a state of great indig- 
nation, he said, * Our folks have got to talking V much; 
they even want a glass of water on the table, and some of them 
want singing in the meetings. I tell them if they want sing- 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 117 

ing, they have got to get the world's folks to do it for them, 
for two hundred years of silence have taken all the sing out 
of our people." 

Yet the manner in which, historic extremes have 
so often met was never more strangely exhibited than 
in a fact in early Quaker tradition revealed by Whit- 
tier to Mrs. Fields. In speaking of Eossetti and his 
extraordinary mediaeval ballad of "Sister Helen," 
Whittier confessed himself strongly attracted to it, 
because he could remember seeing his mother, " who 
was as good a woman as ever breathed," with his 
aunt, performing the strange act on which the ballad 
turns, and melting a waxen figure of a clergyman of 
their time, that his soul might go to its doom in hell. 
" The solemnity of the affair made a deep impression 
on his mind, as a child, for the death of the clergy- 
man in question was confidently expected. His 
< heresies ' had led him to experience this cabalistic 
treatment." 1 The aim of the mystic ceremony was 
to destroy the soul of the passing invalid, and it seems 
almost incredible that any sight or memory of human 
suffering should have called forth such a spirit of 
revenge in those seemingly gentle women. No one 
who has ever read the tragic close of Bossetti's song 
can ever forget it. 

" ' See, see, the wax has dropped from its place, 
Sister Helen, 
And the waves are winning up apace ! ' 
' Yet here they burn but for a space, 
Little brother ! ' 
(0 Mother, Mary, Mother, 
Here for a space, between Hell and Heaven !) 

i Mrs. Fields's " Whittier,' J p. 52. 



118 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" ' Ah ! what white thing at the door has cross'd, 
Sister Helen ? 
Ah ! what is this that sighs in the frost ? ' 
* A soul that's lost as mine is lost, 

Little brother ! ' 
( Mother, Mary, Mother, 
Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven.)" 

It is evident, however, that Whittier had in early- 
life some vague vision of an intellectual movement 
which should enlarge the atmosphere of the Society 
of Friends, not, as has since been done, in the method- 
istical or camp-meeting direction — for that he disap- 
proved — but in the direction of a higher thought and 
life. This letter, hitherto unpublished, from one of 
the most gifted and cultivated associates in his Quaker 
years, reveals to us indirectly this mood of his, and 
is well worth printing because it mirrors his own 
mood. It may be well to add that the writer left the 
Society, not many years after, and apparently retained 
but little affection for it, going so far as to say once 
to me, " Quakerism makes splendid women, and very 
poor, mean, miserable men ; " from which general con- 
demnation Whittier was exempted, although in later 
years their friendship apparently waned, and she 
seemed hardly to appreciate him at his great worth. 

"I am delighted with thy idea, Greenleaf — and it is 
strange that thou shouldst have given form and substance 
to a vague desire that has often floated thro' my brain, 
of seeing something like a corner-stone laid for a Quaker 
temple of literature. And thou art the man to undertake 
it — to humour the ' anti-imaginative ' spirit of thine own 
people, and at the same time, by thy peculiar touches of 
strength and beauty, to expand our inherent tendencies 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 119 

toward mere truth and soberness, into a stronger love, that 
will produce good works, of the self-forgetting nobleness of 
primitive Quakerism. 

"The varieties in the natural characters of our fore- 
fathers, some of those thee mentioned, would be good 
ground for the beautiful. The depth and fervour and in- 
tensity of their love to God, which sent them forth, even 
while their human heart-strings were quivering and crack- 
ing with agony, to the dungeon and to death, in the cause 
of Truth, would befit the lofty and sublime. 

" The agency and influence which their doctrines exerted 
in bursting the coil that the lumbering superstitions of the 
past had wrapped about the human mind at the time of 
their arising — though so much built upon now by their 
ease-loving followers, might be justly and strikingly brought 
into view ; and this would be the part for the world — 
those amongst men, who consider Quakerism but another 
name for narrowmindedness and bigotry, and the doctrine 
of human rights, as understood and advocated by our noble 
pioneer, the far-seeing Penn, and others, but treason. 

" The character of our women too, their beautiful faith, 
devotedness, and fortitude, which come, not of the sect, but 
by nature, would most fittingly adorn the annals of Quaker- 
ism. Thee would not approve the monthly meeting cant, or 
have anything of our ludicrous quaintness, wouldst thou? 
but rather lay the foundation for a pure and correct taste, 
than minister to one, [old] and vitiated. 

" I have never seen the Wordsworth sonnets alluded to, 
but will look at them, to understand thy place. 

" Thy idea only wants the setting of J. G-. Whittier's 
poetry to make it the richest jewel on his crown of fame. 
But I would have thee lay it by, uncut and unpolished, till 
restored health and the quiet occupations of a home life will 
allow thee to work upon it without paying the price, which 
has been the penalty of too many of thy literary labours. 

" Thee had a double motive, hadst thou not, in mention- 
ing the subject ? one, for its own interest, and the other to 
remind me that it is not good for us to dwell too much upon 
our own little petty grievances. Thanks for the hint ; 



120 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

nothing, in kindness and good feeling sent, comes amiss to 
me, whether it be unmerited praise, or deserved reproof. 

" Thy Friend. 
u 4th day morning.' ' 

We know from Whittier's own statement that while 
his parents governed by love rather than by fear, yet 
even he did not fail to encounter in childhood terrors 
on the supernatural side. Books brought them, if they 
had no other source, as we find revealed, for instance, 
in this reminiscence, forming a part of his "Super- 
naturalism in New England :" — 

"How hardly effaced are the impressions of childhood! 
Even at this day, at the mention of the evil angel, an image 
rises before me like that with which I used especially to 
horrify myself in an old copy of * Pilgrim's Progress. ' 
Horned, hoofed, scaly, and fire-breathing, his caudal ex- 
tremity twisted tight with rage, I remember him, illustrat- 
ing the tremendous encounter of Christian in the valley 
where 'Apollyon straddled over the whole breadth of the 
way.' There was another print of the enemy which made 
no slight impression upon me. It was the frontispiece of an 
old, smoked, snuff-stained pamphlet, the property of an 
elderly lady, who had a fine collection of similar wonders, 
wherewith she was kind enough to edify her young visitors, 
containing a solemn account of the fate of a wicked dancing 
party in New Jersey, whose irreverent declaration, that 
they would have a fiddler if they had to send to the lower 
regions after him, called up the fiend himself, who forth- 
with commenced playing, while the company danced to the 
music incessantly, without the power to suspend their exer- 
cise, until their feet and legs were worn off to the knees! 
The rude wood-cut represented the demon fiddler and his 
agonised companions literally stumping it up and down in 
1 cotillons, jigs, strathspeys, and reels.' He would have 
answered very well to the description of the infernal piper 
in « Tarn 0' Shanter.' " 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 121 

The best impression of Whittier' s relation with the 
Society of Friends will be found in two letters ad- 
dressed by him, in later life, to the editor of the 
Friends 1 Review in Philadelphia, in reference to the 
changes then beginning, and maturing later, and des- 
tined to transform so greatly the whole society. 
Those who were acquainted with that body in its 
earlier state, and saw the steps by which it was, in 
the judgment of its reformers, modernised and invig- 
orated, can well understand the point of view of 
Whittier, who certainly represented not merely its 
most elevated, but its most practical and progressive 
side. I remember well at Newport at the very time 
described by him (1870) to have seen incidents which 
almost burlesqued the ancient faith, as when a school- 
girl of fourteen sat eating candy busily during the 
exercises, and on hearing the stentorian voice of a 
Western revivalist to " Stand up for Jesus," put her 
candy down on the seat beside her, rose and bore her 
testimony, and then want back eagerly to her candy, 
once more; or when the ablest and most justly in- 
fluential of the society, the late Edward Earle of 
Worcester, rose toward the end of the meeting and 
proposed that after the custom of their fathers they 
should take a few silent moments. He had scarcely 
sat down when one of the same New Lights rose 
behind him and struck up a rousing camp-meeting 
song, in which all silent thought vanished. It was 
under just such provocations as these that Whittier 
wrote, these were the charges against which Whittier 
protested ; and, as will be seen, in the same just and 
moderate tone which usually marked his writings. 

The following letters were addressed to the editor 



122 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

of the Friends' Review in Philadelphia, in reference 
to certain changes of principle and practice in the 
Society then beginning to be observable, but which 
have since more than justified the writer's fears and 
solicitude. 

" Amesbury, 2nd mo., 1870. 
"To the Editor of the Review. 

" Esteemed Friend, — I have been hitherto a silent, I 
have not been an indifferent, spectator of the movements 
now going on in our religious Society. Perhaps from lack 
of faith, I have been quite too solicitous concerning them, 
and too much afraid that in grasping after new things we 
may let go of old things too precious to be lost. Hence I 
have been pleased to see from time to time in thy paper 
very timely and fitting articles upon a ' Hired Ministry ' and 
1 Silent Worship.' 

The present age is one of sensation and excitement, of 
extreme measures and opinions, of impatience of all slow 
results. The world about us moves with accelerated im- 
pulse, and we move with it : the rest we have enjoyed, 
whether true or false, is broken; the title-deeds of our 
opinions, the reason of our practices, are demanded. Our 
very right to exist as a distinct society is questioned. 
Our old literature ; — the precious journals and biographies 
of early and later Friends — is comparatively neglected for 
sensational and dogmatic publications. We hear complaints 
of a want of educated ministers ; the utility of silent meet- 
ings is denied, and praying and preaching regarded as 
matters of will and option. There is a growing desire for 
experimenting upon the dogmas and expedients and prac- 
tices of other sects. I speak only of admitted facts, and 
not for the purpose of censure or complaint. No one has 
less right than myself to indulge in heresy-hunting or impa- 
tience of minor differences of opinion. If my dear friends 
can bear with me, I shall not find it a hard task to bear 
with them. 

" But for myself I prefer the old ways. With the broad- 



x.J THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 123 

est possible tolerance for all honest seekers after truth, I 
love the Society of Friends. My life has been nearly spent 
in labouring with those of other sects in behalf of the suffer- 
ing and enslaved; and I have never felt like quarrelling 
with Orthodox or Unitarians, who were willing to pull with 
me, side by side, at the rope of Keform. A very large pro- 
portion of my dearest personal friends are outside of our 
communion ; and I have learned with John Woolman to 
find 'no narrowness respecting sects and opinions. ' But 
after a kindly and candid survey of them all, I turn to my 
own Society, thankful to the Divine Providence which 
placed me where I am ; and with an unshaken faith in the 
one distinctive doctrine of Quakerism — the Light within — 
the immanence of the Divine Spirit in Christianity. 

" I am not insensible of the need of spiritual renovation 
in our Society. I feel and confess my own deficiencies as an 
individual member. And I bear a willing testimony to the 
zeal and devotion of some dear friends, who, lamenting the 
low condition and worldliness too apparent among us, seek 
to awaken a stronger religious life by the partial adoption of 
the practices, forms, and creeds of more demonstrative sects. 
The great apparent activity of these sects seems to them to 
contrast very strongly with our quietness and reticence ; 
and they do not always pause to inquire whether the result 
of this activity is a truer type of practical Christianity than 
is found in our select gatherings. I think I understand 
these brethren ; to some extent I have sympathised with 
them. But it seems clear to me, that a remedy for the 
alleged evil lies not in going back to the ' beggarly ele- 
ments ' from which our worthy ancestors called the people 
of their generation ; not in will- worship ; not in setting the 
letter above the spirit ; not in substituting type and sym- 
bol, and oriental figure and hyperbole for the simple truths 
they were intended to represent ; not in schools of theology ; 
not in much speaking and noise and vehemence, nor in vain 
attempts to make the ' plain language ' of Quakerism utter 
the Shibboleth of man-made creeds : but in heeding more 
closely the Inward Guide and Teacher ; in faith in Christ 
not merely in His historical manifestation of the Divine 



124 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

Love to humanity, but in His living presence in the hearts 
open to receive Him ; in love for Him manifested in denial 
of self, in charity and love to our neighbour ; and in a deeper 
realisation of the truth of the apostle's declaration : ' Pure 
religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to 
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to 
keep himself unspotted from the world.' " 

In a second letter he acknowledges many expres- 
sions of sympathy, and adds : — 

"I believe that the world needs the Society of Friends 
as a testimony and a standard. I know that this is the 
opinion of some of the best and most thoughtful members of 
other Christian sects. I know that any serious departure 
from the original foundation of our Society would give pain 
to many who, outside of our communion, deeply realise the 
importance of our testimonies. They fail to read clearly the 
signs of the times who do not see that the hour is coming 
when, under the searching eye of philosophy and the terrible 
analysis of science, the letter and the outward evidence will 
not altogether avail us ; when the surest dependence must 
be upon the Light of Christ within, disclosing the law and 
the prophets in our own souls, and confirming the truth of 
outward Scripture by inward experience; when smooth 
stones from the brook of present revelation shall prove 
mightier than the weapons of Saul ; when the doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit, as proclaimed by George Fox and lived by 
John Woolman, shall be recognised as the only efficient sol- 
vent of doubts raised by an age of restless inquiry. In this 
belief my letter was written. I am sorry it did not fall to 
the lot of a more fitting hand ; and can only hope that no 
consideration of lack of qualification on the part of its writer 
may lessen the value of whatever testimony to truth shall 
be found in it. 

" Amesbury, 3d mo., 1870." 1 

By the testimony of all, Whittier's interpretation of 
" The Inward Light " included no vague recognition 

i Whittier's " Prose Works," III. 305, 306, 309, 310, 313, 314. 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 125 

of high impulse, but something definite, firm, and ex- 
tending into the details of conduct. It ruled his action ; 
and when he had, for instance, decided to take a cer- 
tain railway train, no storm could keep him back. He 
used to cite the following instance, written out by Mrs. 
Claflin, of the trustworthiness of such guidance : — 

" ' I have an old friend/ he said, ' who followed the lead- 
ings of the Spirit and always made it a point to go to meet- 
ing on First-Day. On one First-Day morning, he made 
ready for meeting, and suddenly turning to his wife, said, " I 
am not going to meeting : I am going to take a walk." His 
wife inquired where he was going, and he replied, " I don't 
know ; I am impelled to go, I know not where." With his 
walking stick he started and went out of the city for a mile 
or two, and came to a country-house that stood some dis- 
tance from the road. The gate stood open, and a narrow 
lane, into which he turned, led up to the house where some- 
thing unusual seemed to be going on. There were several 
vehicles standing around the yard, and groups of people were 
gathered here and there. When he reached the house, he found 
there was a funeral, and he entered with the neighbours, who 
were there to attend the service. He listened to the funeral ad- 
dress and to the prayer. It was the body of a young woman 
lying in the casket before him, and he arose and said, " I 
have been led by the Spirit to this house ; I know n'othing of 
the circumstances connected with the death of this person ; 
but I am impelled by the Spirit to say that she has been ac- 
cused of something of which she is not guilty, and the false 
accusation has hastened her death." 

" ' The friend sat down, and a murmur of surprise went 
through the room. The minister arose and said, " Are you 
a God or what are you ? " The friend replied, " I am only a 
poor sinful man, but I was led by the Inner Light to come to 
this house, and to say what I have said, and I would ask the 
person in this room who knows that the young woman, now 
beyond the power of speech, was not guilty of what she was 
accused, to vindicate her in this presence." After a fearful 



126 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

pause, a woman stood up and said, U I am the person,' ' and 
while weeping hysterically, she confessed that she had wilfully 
slandered the dead girl. The friend departed on his home- 
ward way. Such/ said Mr. Whittier, 'was the leading of 
the Inner Light.'" 1 

There is clearly but a narrow step between these 
marvels and the alleged facts of spiritualism about 
which his placid old mother was so interested that she 
never failed, whenever I called there, to look up from 
her knitting after a while and say, " Friend Higginson, 
hast thee heard anything lately about these spiritual 
communications of which I hear ? " the place where I 
then resided having been the scene of some reported 
marvels. Whittier also approached them in a guarded 
way, but without any very positive interest. He wrote 
once to Mrs. Fields, in regard to a poem she had sent 
him : — 

" The poem is solemn and tender ; it is as if a wind from 
the Unseen World blew over it, in which the voice of sorrow 
is sweeter than that of gladness — a holy fear mingled with a 
holier hope. For myself, my hope is always associated with 
dread, like the glowing of a star through mist. I feel, indeed, 
that Love is victorious, that there is no dark it cannot light, 
no depth it cannot reach ; but I imagine that 5 between the 
Seen and the Unseen, there is a sort of neutral ground, a 
land of shadow and mystery, of strange voices and undis- 
tinguished forms. There are some, as Charles Lamb says, 
' who stalk into futurity on stilts/ without awe or self- 
distrust." 2 

Judge Cate also writes me in regard to Whittier's 
supposed interest in "spiritual manifestations," as 
follows : — 

1 Claflin's " Recollections," p. 31. 
a Mrs. Fields's "Whittier/' p. 91. 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 127 

" In regard to spiritualism. I think it can be truly said 
that Mr. Whittier was not a believer in spiritualism, but he 
acknowledged that there was something about it which he 
could not explain and did not understand. He frequently 
related the following incident. When in Boston, at the hotel 
one evening he met an old friend who was interested in 
spiritualism, and he asked Mr. Whittier to visit a medium 
with him ; not being well that evening he declined, but late 
in the evening his friend returned. Mr. Whittier asked 
whom he saw. ' Well/ he replied, ' I saw Henry Wilson.' 
' Did you ? What did Henry have to say ? ' * He spoke of you 
in very complimentary terms.' c What did he say about 
meV 'He said if he were to live his life over again he 
would pattern more after you, because he thought you had 
made less mistakes in your political life than any one he 
had known.' And Mr. Whittier said that this statement 
agreed substantially with a statement which Mr. Wilson 
made a short time before his death. He always spoke of 
spiritualism as something to be explained, while in his 
religious life he was indefinite about embracing any particu- 
lar tenet outside of the Friends." 1 

Mrs. Fields describes him at that summer watering- 
place, the Isles of Shoals, as being once moved, which 
he rarely was, to volunteer his thoughts on spiritual 
subjects: — 

"I remember one season in particular, when the idle talk 
of idle people had been drifting in and out during the day, 
while he sat patiently on in the corner of the pretty room. 
Mrs. Thaxter was steadily at work at her table, yet always 
hospitable, losing sight of no cloud or shadow or sudden 
gleam of glory in the landscape, and pointing the talk often 
with keen wit. Nevertheless, the idleness of it all palled 
upon him. It was Sunday, too, and he longed for some- 
thing which would move us to ' higher levels.' Suddenly, 
as if the idea had struck him like an inspiration, he rose, 
and taking a volume of Emerson from the little library, he 

i Ms. letter, Aug. 26, 1902. 



128 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

opened to one of the discourses, and handing it to Celia 
Thaxter, said : — 

" ' Read that aloud, will thee ? I think we should all like 
to hear it/ 

" After she had ended he took up the thread of the dis- 
course, and talked long and earnestly upon the beauty and 
necessity of worship — a necessity consequent upon the na- 
ture of man, upon his own weakness, and his consciousness 
of the Divine Spirit within him. His whole heart was 
stirred, and he poured himself out toward us as if he 
longed, like the prophet of old, to breathe a new life into 
us. I could see that he reproached himself for not having 
spoken out in this way before, but his enfranchised spirit 
took only a stronger flight for the delay. 

" I have never heard of Whittier's speaking in the meeting- 
house, although he was doubtless often ' moved ' to do so, 
but to us who had heard him on that day he became more 
than ever a light unto our feet. It was not an easy thing 
to do to stem the accustomed current of life in this way, and 
it is a deed only possible to those who, in the Bible phrase, 
' walk with God.' 

" Such an unusual effort was not without its consequences. 
It was followed by a severe headache, and he was hardly 
seen abroad again during his stay." 1 

The following letter to his friend Charlotte Fiske 
Bates — afterward Madame Eoger — conveys most 
fully his point of view as to immortality. 

"To Charlotte Fiske Bates. 

" 1879. 
"I suppose nine out of ten of really thoughtful people, were 
they to express their real feeling, would speak much as thee 
do, of the mingled ' dread and longing' with which they 
look forward to the inevitable surrender of life. Of course, 
temperament and present surroundings have much influence 
with us. There are some self-satisfied souls who, as Charles 
Lamb says, ' can stalk into futurity on stilts ' ; but there are 

i Mrs. Fields's " Whittier," pp. 75-77. 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 129 

more Fearings and Despondencys than Greathearts in view 
of the 'loss of all we know.' I have heard Garrison talk 
much of his faith in spiritualism. He had no doubts what- 
ever, and he was very happy. Death was to him but the 
passing from one room to another and higher one. But his 
facts did not convince me. I am slow to believe new things, 
and in a matter of such tremendous interest, I want ' assur- 
ance doubly sure.' I wonder whether, if I could see a real 
ghost, I should believe my own senses. I do sometimes feel 
very near to dear ones who have left me — perhaps they are 
with me then. I am sure they would be, if it were possible. 
Of one thing I feel sure : that something outside of myself 
speaks to me, and holds me to duty ; warns, reproves, and 
approves. It is good, for it requires me to be good ; it is 
wise, for it knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. It 
is to me a revelation of God, and of His character and attri- 
butes ; the one important fact, before which all others seem 
insignificant. I have seen little or nothing of what is called 
Spiritualism. . . . 

"I have no longer youth and strength, and I have not much 
to hope for, as far as this life is concerned ; but I enjoy life. 
' It is a pleasant thing to behold the sun/ I love Nature 
in her varied aspects ; and, as I grow older, I find much to 
love in my fellow-creatures, and also more to pity. I have 
the instinct of immortality, but the conditions of that life 
are unknown. I cannot conceive what my own identity and 
that of dear ones gone before me will be. And' then the 
unescapable sense of sin in thought and deed, and doubtless 
some misconception of the character of God, makes the boldest 
of us cowards. Does thee remember the epitaph-prayer of 
Martin Elginbrod? 

" l Here lie I, Martin Elginbrod ; 
Have pity on my soul, Lord God, 
As I wad do were I Lord God 
An* ye were Martin Elginbrod.' 

" I think there is a volume of comfort in that verse. We 
Christians seem less brave and tranquil, in view of death, 
than the old Stoic sages. Witness Marcus Antoninus. I 



130 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

wonder if the creed of Christendom is really the ' glad tidings 
of great joy to all people ' which the angels sang of. For 
myself, I believe in God as Justice, Goodness, Tenderness 
— in one word, Love ; and yet, my trust in Him is not strong 
enough to overcome the natural shrinking from the law of 
death. Even our Master prayed that that cup might pass 
from Him, ' if it were possible.' " l 

He said once to Mrs. Claflin : — 

" The little circumstance of death will make no difference 
with me : I shall have the same friends in that other world 
that I have here ; the same loves and aspirations and occu- 
pations. If it were not so, I should not be myself, and 
surely, I shall not lose my identity. God's love is so infi- 
nitely greater than mine that I cannot fear for His children, 
and when I long to help some poor, suffering, erring fellow- 
creature, I am consoled with the thought that His great 
heart of love is more moved than mine can be, and so I 
rest in peace." 2 

This is in harmony with his lines in " The Eternal 
Goodness " — lines which are oftener quoted, perhaps, 
than anything he wrote. 

" I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care." 

This is only a versification of what he wrote in a 
letter, in his eightieth year. " The great question of 
the Future Life is almost ever with me. I cannot 
answer it, but I can trust." 

It is perhaps the natural outcome of a somewhat shy 
and self-withdrawn life that Whittier should have 
described himself in verse more frankly than any 
other of the poets, thus concentrating into one utterance 
of words what others, Holmes for instance, might 
1 Pickard's " Whittier," II. 651-53. 2 Claflin, p. 22. 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 131 

distribute over a hundred scattered talks. He has 
never done this, however, with undue self-conscious- 
ness, but simply, frankly, and with an acute and 
delicate comprehension of his own traits. His poem 
" My Namesake," written in 1853, is the most elabo- 
rate of these delineations, and was addressed to 
his young namesake, Francis Greenleaf Allinson, 
of Burlington, N.J. These are some of the many 
verses : — 

" And thou, dear child, in riper days 

When asked the reason of thy name, 
Shalt answer ; * One 'twere vain to praise 

Or censure bore the same. 

" i Some blamed him, some believed him good, 
The truth lay doubtless 'twixt the two ; 
He reconciled as best he could 
Old faith and fancies new. 

u * In him the grave and playful mixed, 
And wisdom held with folly truce, 
And Nature compromised betwixt 
Good fellow and recluse. 

" i He loved his friends, forgave his foes ; 
And, if his words were harsh at times, 
He spared his fellow-men, — his blows 
Fell only on their crimes. 

" i He loved the good and wise, but found 
His human heart to all akin 
Who met him on the common ground 
Of suffering and of sin. 

" 4 Whatever his neighbours might endure 
Of pain or grief his own became ; 
For all the ills he could not cure 
He held himself to blame. 



132 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" * But still his heart was full of awe 
And reverence for all sacred things ; 
And, brooding over form and law, 
He saw the Spirit's wings ! 

" * Life's mystery wrapt him like a cloud ; 
He heard far voices mock his own, 
The sweep of wings unseen, the loud, 
Long roll of waves unknown.' " 

Literature has few finer meditative poems than that 
written in 1871, and bearing the name " My Birthday." 
Not a verse of this can well be spared for those who 
would be in intimate contact with the poet's soul. 

"My Birthday 

" Beneath the moonlight and the snow 
Lies dead my latest year ; 
The winter winds are wailing low, 
It dirges in my ear. 

" I grieve not with the moaning wind 
As if a loss befell ; 
Before me, even as behind, 
God is, and all is well ! 

" His light shines on me from above, 
His low voice speaks within, — 
The patience of immortal love 
Out wearying mortal sin. 

" Not mindless of the growing years 
Of care and loss and pain, 
My eyes are wet with thankful tears 
For blessings which remain. 

" If dim the gold of life has grown, 
I will not count it dross, 
Nor turn from treasures still my own 
To sigh for lack and loss. 



x.] THE RELIGIOUS SIDE 133 

" The years no charm from Nature take ; 
As sweet her voices call, 
As beautiful her mornings break, 
As fair her evenings fall. 

" Love watches o'er my quiet ways, 
Kind voices speak my name, 
And lips that find it hard to praise 
Are slow, at least, to blame. 

" How softly ebb the tides of will ! 
How fields, once lost or won, 
Now lie behind me green and still 
Beneath a level sun ! 

" How hushed the hiss of party hate, 
The clamour of the throng ! 
How old, harsh voices of debate 
Flow into rhythmic song ! 

" Methinks the spirit's temper grows 
Too soft in this still air ; 
Somewhat the restful heart foregoes 
Of needed watch and prayer. 

" The bark by tempest vainly tossed 
May founder in the calm, 
And he who braved the polar frost 
Faint by the isles of balm. 

" Better than self-indulgent years 
The outflung heart of youth, 
Than pleasant songs in idle ears 
The tumult of the truth. 

" Rest for the weary hands is good, 
And love for hearts that pine, 
But let the manly habitude 
Of upright souls be mine. 



134 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. x. 

" Let winds that blow from heaven refresh, 
Dear Lord, the languid air ; 
And let the weakness of the flesh 
Thy strength of spirit share. 

" And, if the eye must fail of light, 
The ear forget to hear, 
Make clearer still the spirit's sight. 
More fine the inward ear ! 

" Be near me in mine hours of need 
To soothe, or cheer, or warn, 
And down these slopes of sunset lead 
As up the hills of morn ! " 

It is safe to say that no other American poet, and 
perhaps no other poet of this age, has painted his own 
career with such absolute truthfulness, or weighed him- 
self in a balance so delicate. 



CHAPTER XI 

EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 

It is hard to associate with the Whittier of maturer 
years a passage like this written from Boston in 1829, 
at the age of twenty-three ; — 

" Here I have been all day trying to write something for 
my paper, but what with habitual laziness, and a lounge or 
two in the Athenaeum Gallery, I am altogether unfitted for 
composition. . . . There are a great many pretty girls at 
the Athenaeum, and I like to sit there and remark upon the 
different figures that go flitting by me, like aerial creatures 
just stooping down to our dull earth, to take a view of the 
beautiful creations of the painter's genius. I love to watch 
their airy motions, notice the dark brilliancy of their fine 
eyes, and observe the delicate flush stealing over their cheeks, 
but, trust me, my heart is untouched, — cold and motionless 
as a Jutland lake lighted up by the moonshine. I always 
did love a pretty girl. Heaven grant there is no harm in 
it ! . . . Mr. Garrison will deliver an address on the Fourth 
of July. He goes to see his Dulcinea every other night al- 
most, but is fearful of being ' shipped off,' after all, by her. 
Lord help the poor fellow, if it happens so. I like my busi- 
ness very well ; but hang me if I like the people here. I am 
acquainted with a few girls, and have no wish to be so with 
many." 1 

Mr. Pickard however assures us that there are many 
similar passages in Whittier's early letters; and this 
boyish semi-sentimentalism, even if it reaches the con- 
fines of romance, has really no more perilous quality of 
i Pickard 's " Whittier," I. 93-4. 
135 



136 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

passion than has Whittier' s equally unexpected " Hang 
me ! " of profanity. What we know about the maturer 
Whittier is that no man has touched in a higher and 
simpler strain the images of beauty and the associar 
tions of youthful love. 

Perhaps the nearest we shall ever come to his own 
habitual views of matrimony as a personal application 
may be found in his reply to a young girl with whom 
he was fond of talking, and who once replied, — 

" c Mr. Whittier, you often ask me to tell you about my 
experiences; I think you ought to tell me about yours.' 

" ' Well/ said the poet, ' it isn't likely, Mary, that one has 
lived so long as I have in the world without having had 
some experiences, but it isn't worth while for an old man 
to talk much about them. Time was when I had my 
dreams and fancies — but those days have long since passed 
— don't thee think I should have made a pretty good 
husband ? ' 

" 'Yes,' said Mary; 'but I think if thee had wished to 
go to Amesbury on a certain train thee would have gone, 
wife or no wife.' " 

At which he laughed a merry laugh, vigorously smote 
his knee, and said, " I guess thee is about right, Mary." * 

Yet in reading the memoirs of poets it is impossible 
not to find the basis of their early inspirations, three 
times out of four, in some personal experience of love 
and romance. It is, on the other hand, an inconven- 
ience of lifelong bachelorhood that innumerable stories 
arise about a man, first and last ; and that however 
shy his personal relations with women, he only gives 
the more place for supposed wanderings of the heart. 
Whittier's elder sister, looking back from middle life, 
could find nothing positive to tell me of any such 
i Claflin's " Reminiscences," p. 68. 



xi.] EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 137 

wanderings in his case, and could only say that there 
had been vague reports, to which she attached no 
value, about " somebody at Amesbury." The Century 
Magazine for May, 1902, contained what was called 
"a noteworthy letter" by Whittier, edited by Mr. 
William Lyon Phelps and addressed to Miss Cornelia 
Euss of Hartford, Conn., on his leaving that city 
on Dec. 31, 1831. It contains a proposal of an in- 
terview, apparently with a view to marriage. Mr. 
Pickard, his literary editor, frankly doubts the genu- 
ineness of this letter, and partly from its signature, 
" Yours most truly," a loss of the Quaker form which 
has not other example among his early correspond- 
ence; and he also questions the correctness of its 
dates, because he finds Whittier to have left Hartford 
permanently several months earlier than the date of 
the letter. He also disapproves, apparently, the as- 
sumption of Mr. Phelps that the object of this letter 
was the person who inspired that poem of Whittier 
which came nearest to a love-song, " Memories." He 
asserts positively that the real object of this poem 
was a lady of whom Mr. Pickard thus writes in a 
newspaper communication since the publication of his 
volume. 

11 She died several years ago, the widow of Judge Thomas 
of Covington, Ky. She was born in Haverhill, and was a 
distant relative of Whittier's, her maiden name being Mary 
Emerson Smith. Her grandmother, Mrs. Nehemiah Emer- 
son, was a second cousin of Whittier's father. As a girl 
she was often at her grandfather Emerson's, and Whittier 
as a boy lived for a time at the same place, and attended 
school in that district. He called Mary's grandmother 
" Aunt." Afterward they were fellow students at Haver- 
hill Academy. When Whittier was editing the American 



138 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

Manufacturer, in Boston, she was at a seminary at Kenne- 
bunk, Me., and they were in correspondence, which showed 
a warm attachment on his part. I have seen the originals 
of these letters. There were several considerations which 
forbade thought of marriage on the part of either of them. 
She went to Cincinnati with her uncles, about 1831, and 
for this reason he planned to go West in 1832, but was 
prevented by a prospect of being elected to Congress from 
the Essex district. Up to the time of her marriage to 
Judge Thomas, Whittier's letters to her were frequent, all 
written in a brotherly tone, and giving the gossip of Haver- 
hill. In one letter, written in 1832, he refers to his just 
published poem, 'Moll Pitcher/ and says he has in it 
drawn a portrait of herself. This portrait may be found 
on pages 26, 27, of the poem, and it is probable that the 
reason why ' Moll Pitcher ' does not appear in any collection 
of his works is that he used several passages of it in other 
and later poems. Thus, the first stanza of 'Memories' 
is copied almost verbatim from these lines in ' Moll 
Pitcher ' : — 

" ' A beautiful and sylph -like girl, 

With step as soft as summer air — 

With fresh, young lip and brow of pearl, 

Shadowed by many a natural curl 
Of unconfined and flowing hair — 
With the moist eye of pitying care, 
Is bending like a seraph there : 

A seeming child in everything 

Save in her ripening maiden charms ; 

As nature wears the smile of spring, 
When sinking into summer's arms.' 

" It will be noticed that the person described in ' Memo- 
ries ' is remembered as a child, and this does not apply to 
the case of Miss Russ, as it does apply to Miss Smith. 
Then again, the * hazel eyes ' and * brown tresses ' belong to 
Miss Smith, and not, as I have understood, to the Hartford 
lady." 



xi.] EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 139 

Apart from these boyish traditions, the person with 
whom Whittier's name was most persistently attached, 
in the way of matrimonial predictions, was an accom- 
plished and attractive person named Elizabeth Lloyd, 
whom he knew intimately in Friends' Meeting, though 
she afterward became, like many of the Philadelphia 
Friends, an Episcopalian. She, like himself, printed 
many poems, one of which gave her a sort of vicarious 
celebrity, being that entitled " Milton's Prayer in Blind- 
ness," which was taken by many to be a real produc- 
tion of the poet. I can well remember to have heard 
this theory defended by cultivated people; and the 
impression so far prevailed, that it was understood to 
have been reprinted in an English edition of Milton's 
" Works." I remember well this lady at a later period 
during her widowhood, as Mrs. Howell ; she had the 
remains of beauty, was dainty in her person and dress, 
and was very agreeable in conversation. She was in- 
variably described as having been a personal friend of 
Whittier's, and was unquestionably the person men- 
tioned by him in his poem called originally " An Inci- 
dent among the White Mountains," but more recently 
"Mountain Pictures, Monadnock from Wachusett." 1 
In later years, I fear, she was not quite loyal to his 
memory; and was known to criticise him as rustic, 
untravelled, without various experience ; but she must 
remain in the world's memory, if at all, like so many 
Italian women in the past, as the possible retrospective 
candidate for the glory of a poet's early love. 

However this may be, it is deeply interesting to 
trace, through Whittier's earlier and later poems, this 
dawning of pure and high emotion. We find it first, 
1" Works," II. 57. 



140 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

in one of his best known poems ; that which Matthew 
Arnold recognised as " one of the perfect poems, which 
must live nl : — 

" Still sits the schoolhouse by the road, 
A ragged beggar sleeping ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, 
And blackberry vines are creeping. 

" Within, the master's desk is seen, 
Deep-scarred by raps official ; 
The warping floor, the battered seats, 
The jack-knife's carved initial ; 

" The charcoal frescos on the wall ; 
It's door's worn sill, betraying 
The feet that, creeping slow to school, 
Went storming out to playing ! 

" Long years ago a winter sun 
Shone over it at setting ; 
Lit up its western window-panes, 
And low eves' icy fretting. 

"It touched the tangled golden curls, 
And brown eyes full of grieving 
Of one who still her steps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 

" For near her stood the little boy 
Her childish favour singled, 
His cap pulled low upon a face 
Where pride and shame were mingled. 

"Pushing with restless feet the snow 
To right and left he lingered, — 
As restlessly her tiny hands 
The blue-checked apron lingered. 

iMrs. Fields's " Whittier," p. 65. 



xi.] EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 141 

" He saw her lift her eyes, he felt 
The soft hand's light caressing, 
And heard the tremble of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing. 

" ' I'm sorry that I spelt the word ; 
I hate to go above you : 
Because,' — the brown eyes lower fell — 
' Because, you see, I love you.' 

u Still memory to a gray-haired man 

That sweet child-face is showing. 

Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 

Have forty years been growing." 

I withhold the closing verse with its moral ; a thing 
always hard for Whittier to forego. 

The next example of Whittier's range of love poetry 
is to be found in that exquisite romance of New Eng- 
land life and landscape, known as " My Playmate," of 
which Tennyson said justly to Mrs. Maria S. Porter, 
" It is a perfect poem ; in some of his descriptions of 
scenery and wild flowers, he would rank with Words- 
worth." It interprets the associations around him 
and the dreams of the long past as neither Longfellow, 
nor Lowell, nor Holmes, could have done it ; the very 
life of life in love-memories in the atmosphere where 
he was born and dwelt. Many a pilgrim has sought 
the arbutus at Follymill or listened to the pines 
on Kamoth Hill with as much affection as he would 
seek the haunts of Chaucer; and has felt anew the 
charm of the association, the rise and fall of the simple 
music, the skill of the cadence, the way the words fall 
into place, the unexplained gift by which this man who 
could scarcely tell one tune from another on the piano 
became musical by instinct when innocent early mem- 



142 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

ories swayed him. Note that in the whole sixteen 
verses the great majority of the words are monosyl- 
lables ; observe how the veeries sing themselves into 
the line ; and how the moaning of the sea of change 
rushes out and prolongs itself until the revery is 
passed, and the same sea sweeps in and ends the 
dream as absolutely as that one whirling cloud of dis- 
astrous air, from the St. Pierre volcano, ended every 
breath of mortal life for thirty-six thousand human 
beings. See, again, how in the fourth verse, out of 
twenty-six words, every one is made monosyllabic in 
order that the one word " bashful " may linger and be 
effective ; and see how in the sixth the one long word 
in the whole poem "uneventful" multiplies indefi- 
nitely those bereft and solitary years. Did Whittier 
plan those effects deliberately? Probably not, but 
they are there ; and the most exquisite combination 
of sounds in Tennyson or in Mrs. Browning's " Son- 
nets from the Portuguese," can only equal them. Even 
to Whittier, they came only in a favoured hour ; and 
in the more continuous test of blank verse, he fails, 
like every modern poet since Keats, save Tennyson, 
alone. 

" Amy Wentworth " is also one of his very best, and 
has the same delicate precision of sound to the ear and 
in the use of proper names; the house in Jaffrey Street, 
with its staircase and its ivy; with Elliot's green 
bowers and the sweet-brier, blooming on Kittery side — 
the very name " side " being local. This, however, was 
a wholly fictitious legend, as he himself told me; 
and still more imaginative was his last ballad, written 
at the age of sixty-eight, which I quote, in preference 
to " My Playmate," as less known. It has the peculiar 



xi.] EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 143 

interest of having been written in answer to a chal- 
lenge coming from a young lady who said to him 
while they were staying together at his favourite Bear- 
camp River, "Mr. Whittier, you never wrote a love- 
song. I would like to have you try to write one for me 
to sing." The next day he handed her the following, 
and she was the first person to set it to music and 
sing it. He evidently worked it over afterward, how- 
ever, for it must have been written at the earliest 
in the summer of 1876, was offered to the Atlantic 
Monthly in February, 1877, with some expressions of 
doubtful confidence ; was withdrawn by the author, 
and was finally published in the Independent in Dec. 
20, 1877, with this prose letter accompanying — 

" I send, in compliance with the wish of Mr. Bowen and 
thyself, a ballad upon which, though not long, I have be- 
stowed a good deal of labour. It is not exactly a Quakerly 
piece, nor is it didactic, and it has no moral that I know of. 
But it is, I think, natural, simple, and not unpoetical." 

Here is the ballad with its Elizabethan flavour : a 
ballad written at nearly three-score-and-ten, upon a 
day's notice : — 

The Henchman 

" My lady walks her morning round, 
My lady's page her fleet greyhound ; 
My lady's hair the fond winds stir 
And all the birds make songs for her. 

" Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers, 
And Rathburn' s side is gay with flowers ; 
But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird, 
Was beauty seen or music heard. 



144 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

44 The distance of the stars is hers ; 
The least of all her worshippers, 
The dust beneath her dainty heel, 
She knows not that I see or feel. 

44 proud and calm ! she cannot know 
Where'er she goes with her I go ; 

cold and fair ! she cannot guess 

1 kneel to share her hound's caress. 

" Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk, 
I rob their ears of her sweet talk ; 
Her suitors come from east and west, 
I steal her smiles from every guest. 

11 Unheard of her, in loving words 
I greet her with the song of birds ; 
I reach her with her green-armed bowers, 
I kiss her with the lips of flowers. 

44 The hound and I are on her trail, 
The wind and I uplift her veil ; 
As if the calm cool moon she were, 
And I the tide, I follow her. 

44 As unrebuked as they, I share 
The license of the sun and air, 
And in a common homage hide 
My worship from her scorn and pride. 

44 World-wide apart, and yet so near, 
I breathe her charmed atmosphere, 
Wherein to her my service brings 
The reverence due to holy things. 

44 Her maiden pride, her haughty name, 
My dumb devotion shall not shame ; 
The love that no return doth crave 
To knightly level lifts the slave. 



xi.] EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 145 

" No lance have I, in joust or fight 
To splinter in my lady's sight ; 
But at her feet how blest were I 
For any need of hers to die." 

When in his later years, he had matured the ballad 
measure, he gives us also something which, as an 
English critic, Mr. W. J. Linton, has said " reads as if 
it might be from the old French, or a ballad which 
Dante Eossetti might have written " : — 

The Sisters 

" Annie and Rhoda, sisters twain, 
Woke in the night to the sound of rain, 

" The rush of wind, the ramp and roar, 
Of great waves climbing a rocky shore. 

" Annie rose up in her bedgown white, 
And looked out into the storm and night. 

" • Hush, and hearken ! ' she cried in fear, 
' Hearest thou nothing ? sister dear ! ' 

" * I hear the sea and the plash of rain, 
And roar of the northeast hurricane. 

" ' Get thee back to the bed so warm ! 
No good comes of watching a storm. 

11 l What is it to thee, I fain would know, 
That waves are roaring and wild winds blow ? 

u ' No lover of thine is afloat to miss 
The harbour lights on a night like this.' 

" ; But I heard a voice cry out my name : 
Up from the sea on the wind it came. 

" ' Twice and thrice have I heard it call ; 
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall.' 

L 



146 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" On the pillow the sister tossed her head : 
4 Hall of the Heron is safe,' she said. 

" t In the tautest schooner that ever swam 
He rides at anchor in Anisquam. 

" * And, if in peril from swamping sea 
Or lee-shore rocks, would he call on thee ? ' 

" But the girl heard only the wind and tide, 
And wringing her small white hands she cried — 

" 4 O sister Rhoda ! there's something wrong : 
I hear it again, so loud and long. 

" ' " Annie ! Annie ! " I hear it call, 
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall. ' 

" Up sprang the elder with eyes aflame ; 
1 Thou liest ! he never would call thy name, 

" ' If he did, I would pray the wind and sea 
To keep him for ever from thee and me.' 

" Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast : 
Like the cry of a dying man it passed. 

" The young girl hushed on her lips a groan, 
But through her tears a strange light shone — 

" The solemn joy of her heart's release 
To own and cherish its love in peace. 

" • Dearest ! ' she whispered under breath, 
1 Life was a lie, but true is death. 

" ' The love I hid from myself away 
Shall crown me now in the light of day. 

" 'My ears shall never to wooer list, 
Never by lover my lips be kissed. 



xi.] EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 147 

1 ' ' Sacred to thee am I henceforth, 
Thou in heaven and I on earth.' 

11 She came and stood by her sister's bed ; 
4 Hall of the Heron is dead ! ' she said. 

" ' The winds and the waves their work have done, 
We shall see him no more beneath the sun. 

" l Little will reck that heart of thine, 
It loved him not with a love like mine. 

" ' I for his sake, were he but here, 
Could hem and broider thy bridal gear ; 

u ( Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet, 
And stitch for stitch in my heart be set. 

u * But now my soul with his soul I wed ; 
Thine the living and mine the dead.' " 

This is in the highest degree dramatic, but the traces 
of individual feeling come back to us most deeply, 
after all, in the personal lyrics, like the following, 
behind which some direct private experience must, 
unquestionably, have stood : — 

Memories 

" How thrills once more the lengthening chain 

Of memory at the thought of thee ! 
Old hopes which long in dust have lain, 
Old dreams come thronging back again, 

And boyhood lives again in me : 
I feel its glow upon my cheek. 

Its fulness of the heart is mine, 
As when I leaned to hear thee speak, 

Or raised my doubtful eye to thine. 



148 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" I hear again thy low replies, 

I feel thy arm within my own, 
And timidly again uprise 
The fringed lids of hazel eyes 

With soft brown tresses overblown. 
Ah ! memories of sweet summer eves, 

Of moonlit wave and willowy way, 
Of stars and flowers and dewy leaves, 

And smiles and tones more dear than they ! 

" Ere this thy quiet eye hath smiled 

My picture of thy youth to see, 
When, half a woman, half a child, 
Thy very artlessness beguiled, 

And folly's self seemed wise in thee. 
I, too, can smile when o'er that hour 

The lights of memory backward stream, 
Yet feel the while that manhood's power 

Is vainer than my boyhood's dream. 

" Years have passed on, and left their trace, 

Of graver care and deeper thought ; 
And unto me the calm, cold face 
Of manhood, and to thee the grace 

Of woman's pensive beauty brought. 
More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, 

The schoolboy's humble name has flown ; 
Thine, in the green and quiet ways 

Of unobtrusive goodness known. 

" And wider yet in thought and deed 

Diverge our pathways, one in youth ; 
Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, 
While answers to my spirit's need 

The Derby dalesman's simple truth. 
For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, 

And holy day, and solemn psalm ; 
For me, the silent reverence where 

My brethren gather, slow and calm. 



xl] EARLY LOVES AND LOVE POETRY 149 

" Yet hath thy spirit left on me 

An impress Time has worn not out, 
And something of myself in thee, 
A shadow from the past, I see, 

Lingering, even yet, thy way about ; 
Not wholly can the heart unlearn 

That lesson of its better hours, 
Nor yet has Time's dull footstep worn 

To common dust the path of flowers." 



CHAPTEE XII 

WHITTIER THE POET 

In passing from the domain of love poetry and con- 
sidering Whittier's more general claims as a poet, we 
must accept Lord Bacon's fine definition of poetry that 
" It hath something divine in it, because it raises the 
mind and hurries it into sublimity, by conforming the 
shows of things to the desires of the soul, instead of 
subjecting the soul to external things, as reason and 
history do." In this noble discrimination, — which 
one wonders not to have been cited among the rather 
inadequate arguments to prove that Lord Bacon was 
the real Shakespeare, — we have the key, so far as 
there is any, for the change from the boy Whittier, 
with his commonplace early rhymes, into the man 
who reached the sublime anthem of " My Soul and I." 
He also was " hurried into sublimity." 

In the case of Holmes, it is a very common remark 
that his prose, especially " The Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table," will outlast his poems, except perhaps 
"The Chambered Nautilus." No one can make any 
similar suggestion in regard to Whittier, whose best 
poetry wholly surpasses his best prose, in respect to 
grasp and permanence. It is, indeed, rather surpris- 
ing to see how much of his prose he has thought it 
best to preserve, and by how little literary distinction 
it is marked. Earnestness and sound sense, it always 

150 



chap, xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 151 

has; and it always throws its stress on the side of 
manly sympathy and human progress, but more than 
this cannot be said. His few attempts at fiction are 
without marked life, and the little poems interspersed 
in them are better than the prose, which is rarely the 
case with authors. Much of this prose is simply in 
the line of reformatory journalism, and does not bear 
the test of the bound volume. Even in his narratives 
of real experience there is nothing to be compared with 
Lowell's " Moosehead Journal," or in general literary 
merit with his "On a Certain Condescension in 
Foreigners." On the other hand, Whittier escapes 
the pitfalls or tiresome side-paths into which both 
Lowell and Holmes were sometimes tempted ; he may 
be prosaic, but never through levity, as sometimes 
happened to Lowell, or through some scientific whim, 
as in case of Holmes ; and though his prose never has, 
on the literary side, the affluence of "Hyperion," it 
never shows the comparative poverty of " Kavanagh." 
It is, nevertheless, as a whole, so far inferior to his 
poems, that it is best at this day to give our chief 
attention to these. 

No one can dwell much on Whittier without' recog- 
nising him as the distinctively American poet of fa- 
miliar life. More than any other he reaches the 
actual existence of the people, up to the time of his 
death. He could say of himself what Lowell said 
dramatically only, " We draw our lineage from the op- 
pressed." Compared with him Longfellow, Holmes, 
and even Lowell, seem the poets of a class ; Whittier 
alone is near the people ; setting apart Emerson, who 
inhabited a world of his own, " so near and yet so far." 
His whole position was indeed characteristic of Ameri- 



152 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

can society ; had he lived in England, he would al- 
ways have been, at his highest, in the position of some 
Corn-Law Ehymer, some Poet of the People; or at 
best, in the often degrading position of his favourite 
Burns himself, whereas in his own country this ex- 
ternal difference was practically forgotten. Having 
gone thus far in fitting out this modest poet, nature 
gave to him, more directly than to either of the 
others, the lyric gift — a naturalness of song and flow, 
increasing with years and reaching where neither 
of the others attained. A few of Longfellow's poems 
have this, but Whittier it pervades; and beginning 
like Burns, with the very simplest form, the verse 
of four short lines, he gradually trained himself, 
like Burns, to more varied or at least to statelier 
measures. 

Burns was undoubtedly his literary master in verse 
and Milton in prose. He said of Burns to Mrs. 
Fields, " He lives, next to Shakespeare, in the heart of 
humanity." x His contentment in simple measures was 
undoubtedly a bequest from this poet and was carried 
even farther, while his efforts were more continuous in 
execution and higher in tone. On the other hand, he 
drew from Milton his long prose sentences and his tend- 
ency to the florid rather than the terse. His conver- 
sation was terse enough, but not his written style. He 
said to Mrs. Fields : " Milton's prose has long been my 
favourite reading. My whole life has felt the influence 
of his writings." 2 He once wrote to Fields that 
Allingham, after Tennyson, was his favourite among 
modern British poets. I do not remember him as 

iFields's "Whittier," p. 51. 
2 Fields's " Whittier," p. 41. 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 153 

quoting Browning or speaking of him. This may, 
however, have been an accident. 

One of the very ablest of New England critics, a 
man hindered only by prolonged ill-health from taking 
a conspicuous leadership, David Atwood Wasson, him- 
self the author of that noble poem with its seven- 
teenth-century flavour, "All's Well," wrote in 1864 in 
the Atlantic Monthly what is doubtless the prof oundest 
study of Whittier's temperament and genius. From 
this I gladly quote some passages : — 

"It was some ten years ago," he writes, "that we first 
met John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet of the moral senti- 
ment and of the heart and faith of the people of America. 
It chanced that we had been making notes, with much inter- 
est, upon the genius of the Semitic nations. That peculiar 
simplicity, centrality, and intensity which caused them to 
originate Monotheism from two independent centres, the 
only systems of pure Monotheism which have had power in 
history, while the same characteristics made their poetry al- 
ways lyrical, never epic or dramatic, and their most vigorous 
thought a perpetual sacrifice on the. altars of the will, this 
had strongly impressed us; and we seemed to find in it a 
striking contrast to the characteristic genius of the Aryan or 
Indo-Germanic nations, with their imaginative interpreta- 
tions of the religious sentiment, with their epic "and dra- 
matic expansions, and their taste for breadth and variety. 
Somewhat warm with these notions we came to a meeting 
with our poet, and the first thought on seeing him was — 
' The head of a Hebrew prophet ! ' It is not Hebrew — 
Saracen rather — the Jewish type is heavier, more material ; 
but it corresponded strikingly to the conceptions we had 
formed of the Southern Semitic crania, and the whole make 
of the man was of the same character. The high cranium, 
so lofty, especially in the dome — the slight and symmetrical 
backward siope of the whole head — the powerful level brows, 
and beneath these the dark, deep eyes, so full of shadowed 
fire — the Arabian complexion — the sharp-cut, intense lines 



154 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

of the face — the light, tall, erect stature — the quick axial 
poise of the movement — all these answered with singular 
accuracy to the picture of those preacher-races which had 
been shaping itself in our imagination. Indeed the impres- 
sion was so strong as to induce some little feeling of embar- 
rassment. It seemed slightly awkward and insipid to be 
meeting a prophet here in a parlour and in a spruce masquer- 
ade of modern costume, shaking hands, and saying, ' Happy 
to meet you ! ? after the fashion of our feeble civilities. 

" All this came vividly to remembrance on taking up, 
the other day, Whittier's last book of poems — * In War- 
time ' — a volume that has been welcomed all over the land 
with enthusiastic delight. Had it been no more, however, 
than a mere personal reminiscence, it should, at present, 
have remained private. But have we not here a key to 
Whittier's genius ? Is not this Semitic centrality and sim- 
plicity, this prophetic depth, reality, and vigour, without 
great lateral and intellectual range, its especial characteris- 
tic'? He has not the liberated, light- winged Greek imagi- 
nation — imagination not involved and included in the 
religious sentiment, but playing in epic freedom and with 
various interpretation between religion and intellect — he 
has not the flowing, Protean, imaginative sympathy, the 
power of instant self-identification, with all forms of charac- 
ter and life which culminated in Shakespeare ; but that 
imaginative vitality which lurks in faith and conscience, 
producing what we may call ideal force of heart This he 
has eminently ; and it is this central, invisible, Semitic heat 
which makes him a poet. Imagination exists in him, not 
as a separable faculty, but as a pure vital suffusion. Hence 
he is an inevitable poet. There is no drop of his blood, 
there is no fibre of his brain, which does not crave poetical 
expression. ..." 

Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, a recognised au- 
thority on American poetry, says admirably of 
Whittier: — 

"... His imperfections were those of his time and 
class. He never learned compression, and still [1885] is 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 155 

troubled more with fatal fluency than our other poets of 
equal rank, — by an inability to reject poor stanzas and to 
stop at the right place. But there came a period when his 
verse was composed with poetic intent, and after a less careless 
fashion. ... ' Cassandra South wick/ alone, showed where 
his strength lay; of all our poets he is the most natural 
balladist. . . . And as a bucolic poet of his own section, 
rendering its pastoral life and aspect, Whittier surpasses all 
rivals. . . . Longfellow's rural pieces were done by a 
skilled workman, who could regard his themes objectively 
and put them to good use. Lowell delights in out-door life, 
and his Yankee studies are perfect ; still we feel that he is 
intellectually and socially miles above the people of the 
vales. Whittier is of their blood, and always the boy-poet 
of the Essex farm, however advanced in years and fame. 
They are won by the sincerity and ingenuousness of his 
verse, rooted in the soil and nature as the fern and wild- 
rose of the wayside. ... He himself despises a sham pas- 
toral. There is good criticism, a clear sense of what is 
needed, in his paper on Robert Dinsmore, the old Scotch 
bard of his childhood. He says of rural poetry that ' the 
mere dilettante and the amateur ruralist may as well keep 
their hands off. The prize is not for them. He who would 
successfully strive for it must be himself the thing he sings, 
one who has added to his book-lore the large experience of 
an active participation in the rugged toil, the hearty amuse- 
ments, the trials and pleasures he describes.' " 

" Whittier's origin and early life," writes Stedman, " were 
auspicious for one who was to become a poet of the people. 
His muse shielded him from the relaxing influence of luxury 
and superfine culture. These could not reach the primitive 
homestead in the beautiful Merrimac Valley, five miles out 
from the market-town of Haverhill, where all things were 
elementary and of the plainest cast. The training of the 
Friends made his boyhood more simple, otherwise it mat- 
tered little whether he derived from Puritan or Quaker 
sources. Still it was much, in one respect, to be descended 
from Quakers and Huguenots used to suffer and be strong 
for conscience' sake. It placed him years in advance of the 



156 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

comfortable Brahmin class, with its blunted sense of right 
and wrong, and, to use his own words, turned him £ so early 
away from what Eoger Williams calls the world's great trin- 
ity, pleasure, profit, and honour, to take side with the poor 
and oppressed/ . . . Whittier's Quaker strain yielded him 
wholly to the ' intellectual passion.' That transcendentalism 
aroused, and still keeps him obedient to the Inward Light. 
And it made him a poet militant, a crusader, whose moral 
weapons, since he must disown the carnal, were keen of edge 
and seldom in their scabbards. The fire of his deep-set eyes, 
whether betokening, like that of his kinsman Webster, the 
Batchelder blood, or inherited from some old Feuillevert, 
strangely contrasts with the benign expression of his mouth, 
— that firm serenity which by transmitted habitude dwells 
upon the lips of the sons and daughters of peace. 

" There was no affectation in the rusticity of his youth. 
It was the real thing, the neat and saving homeliness of the 
eastern farm. ... Of our leading poets he was almost the 
only one who learned Nature by working with her at all 
seasons, under the sky and in the wood. 

"... But the mission of his life now came upon him. It 
was no personal ambition that made him the psalmist of the 
new movement. His verses, crude as they were, had gained 
favour; he already had a name, and a career was predicted 
for him. He now doomed himself to years of retardation 
and disfavour, and had no reason to foresee the honours they 
would bring him in the end. What he tells us is the truth : 
' For twenty years my name would have injured the circula- 
tion of any of the literary or political journals of the coun- 
try.' . . . Bryant, many years later, pointed out that in 
recent times the road of others to literary success had been 
made smooth by antislavery opinions, adding that in Whit- 
tier's case the reverse of that was true ; that he made him- 
self the champion of the slave, ' when to say aught against 
the national curse was to draw upon one's self the bitterest 
hatred, loathing, and contempt, of the great majority of men 
throughout the land.' Unquestionably, Whittier's ambition, 
during his novitiate, had been to do something as a poet and 
a man of letters. Not that he had learned what few in fact 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 157 

at that time realised, that the highest art aims at creative 
beauty, and that devotion, repose, and calm, are essential to 
the mastery of an ideal. . . . We measure poetry at its 
worth, not at the worth of the maker. This is the law; 
yet in Whittier's record, if ever, there is an appeal to the 
higher law that takes note of exceptions. Some of his verse, 
as a pattern for verse hereafter, is not what it might have 
been if he had consecrated himself to poetry as an art ; but 
it is memorably connected with historic times, and his rudest 
shafts of song were shot true and far and tipped with flame. 
. . . His songs touched the hearts of his people. It was 
the generation which listened in childhood to the ' Voices of 
Freedom,' that fulfilled their prophecies. . . . 

" After the war, Garrison, at last crowned with honour, and 
rejoicing in the consummation of his work, was seldom heard. 
Whittier, in his hermitage, the resort of many pilgrims, as 
steadily renewed his song." 

The poem in which Stedman finds the highest claim 
to have been made by Whittier as a natural balladist 
is the following : — 

Cassandra Southwick 

It is a story of 1658, of a young Quaker girl sentenced in Boston, 
for her religion, to be transported to Virginia, and there sold as a 
slave. She is brought from prison to where the merchant ships are 
at anchor, and the ship-men are asked who will take charge of her. 

This is what follows : — 

" But gray heads shook and young brows knit the while the 
sheriff read 
That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made. 

t|p ?|t 3p %f *F *F * 

" Grim and silent stood the captains, and when again he cried, 
4 Speak out, my worthy seamen ! ' no voice, no sign replied ; 

" But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met 
my ear : 
i God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear ! ' 



158 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" A weight seemed lifted from my heart, a pitying friend was 
nigh; 
I felt it in his hard rough hand, and saw it in his eye ; 

" And when again the Sheriff spoke, that voice so kind to me 
Growled back its stormy answer, like the roaring of the sea. 

" ' Pile my ship with bars of silver, pack with coins of Spanish 
gold 
From keel-piece up to deck-plank the roomage of her hold, 

" * By the living God who made me, I would sooner in your bay 
Sink ship and crew and cargo than bear this child away ! ' 

" ' Well answered, worthy captain ! shame on their cruel laws ! ' 
Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people's just 
applause. 

" * Like the herdsmen of Tekoa, in Israel of old, 
Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold ? ' 

" I looked on haughty Endicott with weapon half-way drawn, 
Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and 
scorn ; 

" Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein and turned in silence back, 
And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his 
track. 

H Hard after them the Sheriff looked, in bitterness of soul ; 
Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his 
parchment roll. 

" * Good friends! ' he said, 'since both have fled, the ruler and 
the priest, 
Judge ye, if from their farther work I be not well released.' 

" Loud was the cheer which full and clear swept round the 
silent bay, 
As with kind words and kinder looks, he bade me go my 
way: 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 159 

" Eor He who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen 
And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men." 

It was a natural result of his reticent habit and 
retired life that his maturer poems impress us, as we 
dwell upon them, with more sense of surprise as to 
their origin and shaping than exists in the case of any 
of his compeers, save only the almost equally reticent 
Emerson. In Longfellow's memoirs, in Lowell's letters, 
we see them discussing their purposes with friends, 
accepting suggestion and correction, while Whittier's 
poems come always with surprise, and even Mr. Pick- 
ard's careful labours add little to our knowledge. Mrs. 
Claflin and Mrs. Fields give us little as to the actual 
origins of his poems. I have never felt this deficiency 
more than in sitting in his house, once or twice, since 
his death, and observing the scantiness of even his 
library. Occasional glimpses in his notes help us a 
very little, as for instance what he says in the preface 
to his u Child Life in Prose," published in 1873, as 
to his early sources of inspiration: — 

" It is possible that the language and thought of some por- 
tions of the book may be considered beyond the comprehen- 
sion of the class for which it is intended. Admitting that 
there may be truth in the objection, I believe, with Coventry 
Patmore in his preface to a child's book, that the charm of 
such a volume is increased rather than lessened by the sur- 
mised existence of an unknown element of power, meaning, 
and beauty. I well remember how, at a very early age, the 
solemn organ-roll of Gray's c Elegy ' and the lyric sweep and 
pathos of Cowper's ' Lament for the Royal George ' moved 
and fascinated me with a sense of mystery and power felt 
rather than understood. ' A spirit passed before my face, 
but the form thereof was not discerned.' Freighted with 
unguessed meanings, these poems spake to me, in an un- 



160 JOHN GEEENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

known tongue, indeed, but like the wind in the pines 
or the waves on the beach, awakening faint echoes and 
responses, and vaguely prophesying of wonders yet to be 
revealed." 

He was the Tyrtaeus or leading bard of the greatest 
moral movement of the age ; and be probably gained in 
all ways from the strong tonic of the antislavery agita- 
tion. This gave a training in directness, simplicity, 
genuineness ; it taught him to shorten his sword and to 
produce strong effects by common means. It made him 
permanently high-minded also, and placed him, as he 
himself always said, above the perils and temptations 
of a merely literary career. Though always careful 
in his work, and a good critic of the work of others, 
he usually talked by preference upon subjects not lit- 
erary — politics, social science, the rights of labour. 
He would speak at times, if skilfully led up to it, about 
his poems, and was sometimes, though rarely, known 
to repeat them aloud; but his own personality was 
never a favourite theme with him, and one could easily 
fancy him as going to sleep, like La Fontaine, at the 
performance of his own opera. 

In his antislavery poetry he was always simple, 
always free from that excess or over-elaborateness of 
metaphor to be seen sometimes in Lowell. On the 
other hand he does not equal Lowell in the occasional 
condensation of vigorous thought into great general 
maxims. Lowell's " Verses suggested by the Present 
Crisis M followed not long after Whittier's " Massa- 
chusetts to Virginia," and, being printed anonymously, 
was at first attributed to the same author. Whittier's 
poems had even more lyric fire and produced an 
immediate impression even greater, but it touched 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 161 

universal principles less broadly, and is therefore now 
rarely quoted, while LowelFs 

11 Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne," 

is immortal on the lips of successive orators. 

Brought up at a period when Friends disapproved 
of music, Whittier had no early training in this direc- 
tion, and perhaps no natural endowment. He wrote 
in a letter of 1882, — "I don't know anything of music, 
not one tune from another." This at once defined the 
limits of his verse, and restricted him to the very sim- 
plest strains. He wrote mostly in the four-line ballad 
metre, which he often made not only very effective, 
but actually melodious. That he had a certain amount 
of natural ear is shown by his use of proper names, in 
which, after his early period of Indian experiments 
had passed, he rarely erred. In one of his very best 
poems, " My Playmate/' a large part of the effective- 
ness comes from the name of the locality : — 

" The dark pines sing on Eamoth hill 
The slow song of the sea." 

He felt his own deficiency in regard to music, and 
had little faith in his own ear, the result being that 
even if he made a happy stroke in the way of sound, 
he was apt to distrust it at the suggestion of some 
prosaic friend with a foot rule, who convinced him that 
he was taking a dangerous liberty. Thus, in "The 
New Wife and the Old," in describing the night sounds, 
he finally closed with — 

" And the great sea waves below, 
Pulse o' the midnight beating slow." 

This " pulse o' the midnight " was an unusual rhythmic 



162 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

felicity for him, but, on somebody's counting the sylla- 
bles, he tamely submitted, substituting 

"Like the night's pulse, heating slow," 

which is spondaic and heavy; but he afterward re- 
stored the better line. In the same way, when he sang 
of the shoemakers in the very best of his " Songs of 
Labour," he originally wrote : — 

" Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, 
In strong and hearty German, 
And Canning's craft and Gifford's wit, 
And the rare good sense of Sherman." 

Under similar pressure of criticism he was induced to 
substitute 

" And patriot fame of Sherman," 

and this time he did not repent. It is painful to think 
what would have become of the liquid measure of 
Coleridge's " Christabel " had some tiresome acquaint- 
ance, possibly " a person on business from Porlock," 
insisted on thus putting that poem in the stocks. 

It shows the essential breadth which lay beneath the 
religious training of the Society of Friends, even in its 
most conservative wing, that Whittier, not knowing a 
note of music, should have contributed more hymns 
to the hymn-book than any other poet of his time, al- 
though this is in many cases through the manipula- 
tion of others, which furnished results quite unexpected 
to him. In a collection of sixty-six hymns prepared for 
the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, more 
were taken from Whittier's poems than from any other 
author, these being nine in all. The volume edited 
by Longfellow and Johnson, called "Hymns of the 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 163 

Spirit" (1864), has twenty-two from Whittier; the 
" Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book " of 1868, has seven, 
and Dr. Martineau's " Hymns of Praise v has seven. 
As has elsewhere been stated, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin D. 
Mead reported, after attending many popular meetings 
in England, in 1901, that they heard Whittier and 
Longfellow quoted and sung more freely than any 
other poets. 

It is especially to be noticed that in Whittier's 
poems of the sea there is a salt breath, a vigorous 
companionship — perhaps because he was born and 
bred near it — not to be found in either of his com- 
panion authors. There is doubtless a dramatic move- 
ment, an onward sweep in Longf ellow's " Wreck of the 
Hesperus " and " Sir Humphrey Gilbert " such as 
Whittier never quite attained, and the same may be 
true of the quiet, emotional touch in Longfellow's 
"The Fire of Driftwood"; nor was there ever pro- 
duced in America, perhaps, any merely meditative 
poem of the sea so thoughtful and so perfect in execu- 
tion as Holmes's " The Chambered Nautilus." Among 
American poets less known, Brownlee Brown's "Tha- 
latta" and Helen Jackson's "Spoken" were respec- 
tively beyond him in their different directions. But 
for the daily atmosphere and life, not so much of the 
sea as of the seaside, for the companionship of the 
sailor, the touch that makes the ocean like a larger 
and more sympathetic human being to those who dwell 
within its very sound, Whittier stands before them 
all ; he is simply a companion to the sailor, as he is to 
the farmer and the hunter ; and he weaves out of the 
life of each a poetry such as its actual child hardly 
knows. The "Tent on the Beach" will always keep 



164 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

us nearer to the actual life of salt water than can any- 
thing by Whittier's companion poets. 

Probably no poet was ever more surprised by the 
success of a new book than was Whittier by that of 
this poem about which, as he wrote to a friend, he had 
great misgivings, as it was prepared under especial 
disadvantages. He was amazed when he saw in the 
Boston Transcript that a first edition of ten thousand 
copies had been printed, and thought it "an awful 
swindle " upon the public that a thousand copies a 
day should have been sold. This made more striking 
the fact that he put into it, perhaps, the best bit of 
self-delineation he ever accomplished in the following 
lines : — 

" And one there was, a dreamer born, 

Who, with a mission to fulfil, 

Had left the Muses' haunts to turn 

The crank of an opinion mill, 
Making his rustic reed of song 
A weapon in the war with Wrong, 
Yoking his fancy to the breaking plough 
That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow. 

" Too quiet seemed the man to ride 
The winged Hippogriff, Reform ; 
Was his a voice from side to side 

To pierce the tumult of the storm ? 
A silent, shy, peace-loving man, 
He seemed no fiery partisan 
To hold his way against the public frown, 
The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's hounding down. 

* ' For while he wrought with strenuous will 
The work his hands had found to do, 
He heard the fitful music still 
Of winds that out of dreadland blew ; 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 165 

The din about him could not drown 
What the strange voices whispered down ; 
Along his task-field weird processions swept, 
The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped." 

The uncertainty of an author's judgment of his own 
books was never better illustrated than by the fact that 
Whittier's poem " Mabel Martin" first published under 
the name of " The Witch's Daughter w in the National 
Era for 1857 — erroneously described by Mr. Pickard 
as first published in 1866 — was his greatest immedi- 
ate financial success. It was somewhat enlarged as 
"Mabel Martin" in 1877, and he received for it $1000 
at the first annual payment. Mr. Pickard pronounces 
it " charming/' but I suspect that it is rarely copied, 
and hardly ever quoted — perhaps because the three- 
line measure is unfavourable to Whittier's style or to 
the public tastes. The absence of rhyme from one 
line in each three-line verse is not compensated by any 
advantage, while the four-line verse of the dedication 
of the whole work to the memory of his mother is very 
attractive. 

He has defects of execution which are easily appar- 
ent. His poems, even to the latest, are apttobe too 
long, and to be laden with a superfluous moral, and 
come dangerously near to meriting the criticism of 
D'Alembert on Eichardson's long-winded words, once 
so lauded : " Nature is a good thing, but do not bore 
us with it (non pas & V 'ennui) ." Whittier did not 
actually reach the point of ennui, but came very near 
it. As for his rhymes, though not so bad as those of 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, they were, in his early 
years, bad enough. Mr. Linton, from the English 
point of view, or from any other, was justified in 



166 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

protesting against such rhymes as worn and turn, 
joins and pines, faults and revolts, flood and Hood, 
even and Devon, heaven and forgiven. 1 We can 
easily find in addition, mateless and greatness, pearl and 
marl, women and trimming, scamper and Hampshire ; 
some of all this list, it must be remembered, being 
mere archaisms or localisms, and all tending in Whit- 
tier's case, as in Mrs. Browning's, to entire disappear- 
ance after middle life. No one complains of the 
rhymes in "Sonnets from the Portuguese." 

Even when Whittier uses a mispronunciation or 
makes a slip in grammar, it has the effect of over- 
sight or of whim, rather than of ignorance. Thus he 
commonly accents the word " romance" on the first 
syllable, as in — 

" Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes ; " 

while at other times he places the stress more correctly 
on the last, as where he writes — 

" Where Tasso sang, let young Romance and Love." a 

The only very conspicuous translation from Whit- 
tier into French, so far as I know, is one of his earliest 
poems called " The Vaudois Teacher " — first attributed 
to Mrs. Hemans — which was adopted as a local poem 
among the Waldenses, who did not know its origin 
until 1875, when the Eev. J. C. Fletcher communicated 
the fact to the Moderator of the Waldensian Synod, 
having himself heard the poem sung by students of 
D'Aubigne's seminary at Geneva. On Mr. Fletcher's 
return to Italy, in 1875, he caused the fact of author- 
ship to be conveyed to the Synod, whose members rose 

l Linton's " Whittier," p. 167. 
2 "Poetical Works," IV. 38. 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 167 

and cheered and caused the Moderator to write a letter, 
of which the following is a translation — the letter 
being dated from Torre Pellice, Piemont, Italie, Sep- 
tember 13, 1875 : — 

"Dear and Honoured Brother, — I have recently 
learned by a letter from my friend, J. C. Fletcher, now 
residing in Naples, that you are the author of the charming 
little poem, ' The Vaudois Colporteur,' which was trans- 
lated several years ago in French by Professor de Felic6, of 
Montauban, and of which there is also an excellent Italian 
translation made by M. Giovanni Nicolini, Professor of our 
College at Torrd Pellicd. There is not a single Vaudois who 
has received any education who cannot repeat from memory 
'The Vaudois Colporteur' in French or in Italian. The 
members of the Synod of the Vaudois Church assembled to 
the number of about seventy at a pastoral banquet, on 
Thursday evening, the 9th inst., and unanimously voted the 
motion which I had the honour of proposing, viz. : That we 
should send a very warm Christian fraternal salutation to 
the author of ' The Vaudois Colporteur.' I was intrusted 
with the duty of conveying this salutation to you — a duty 
which I fulfil with joy, expressing at the same time our 
gratitude to you, and also our wish to receive, if possible, 
from yourself the original English, which is still unknown 
to us, of this piece of poetry, which we so justly prize. 
Accept, dear and honoured brother, these lines of respect and 
Christian love, from your sincere friend in the Lord Jesus, 
"J. D. Charbonnier, 
" Moderator of the Vaudois Church." 

Mr. Whittier's reply, dated Amesbury, 10th mo., 
21st, 1875, is in these words : — 

" My Dear Friend, — I have received thy letter inform- 
ing me of the generous appreciation of my little poem by the 
Synod of which thou art Moderator. Few events of my life 
have given me greater pleasure. I shall keep the letter 
amongst my most precious remembrances, and it will be a 



168 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, [chap. 

joy to me to know that in your distant country, and in those 
sanctuaries of the Alps, consecrated by such precious and holy 
memories, there are Christians, men and women, who think 
of me with kindness, and give me a place in their prayers. 
May the dear Lord and Father of us all keep you always 
under His protection." 1 

In summing up the results of Whittier's twin career 
as poet and as file-leader, it may be safely said that bis 
early career of reformer made him permanently high- 
minded, and placed him above the perils and tempta- 
tions of a merely literary career. This he himself 
recognised from the first, and wrote it clearly and 
musically in a poem printed at the very height of 
conflict (1847), more than ten years before the Civil 
War. He took this poem as the prelude to a volume 
published ten years later, and again while revising 
his poems for a permanent edition in 1892. Un- 
like many of his earlier compositions, it is reprinted 
by him without the change of a syllable. 

" Proem 

"I love the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 

The songs of Spenser's golden days, 

Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. 

" Yet vainly in my quiet hours 
To breathe their marvellous notes I try ; 

I feel them, as the leaves and flowers 

In silence feel the dewy showers, 
And drink with glad still lips the blessing of the sky. 

11 The rigour of a frozen clime, 
The harshness of an untaught ear, 

iPickard's " Whittier," II. 607-09. 



xii.] WHITTIER THE POET 169 

The jarring words of one whose rhyme 
Beat often Labour's hurried time 
On Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. 

" Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, 
No rounded art the lack supplies ; 

Unskilled the subtler lines to trace 

Or softer shades of Nature's face. 
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes, 

44 Nor mine the seer-like power to show 
The secrets of the heart and mind ; 

To drop the plummet-line below 

Our common world of joy and woe, 
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. 

44 Yet here at least an earnest sense 
Of human right and weal is shown, 

A hate of tyranny intense 

And hearty in its vehemence 
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. 

44 Freedom ! if to me belong 
Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, 

Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song, 

Still, with a love as deep and strong 
As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine." 

It is well to close this chapter with these words he 
wrote, at the Asquam House, in 1882, on the death of 
Longfellow, in a copy of the latter's poems, belonging 
to my sister : — 

44 Hushed now the sweet consoling tongue 
Of him whose lyre the Muses strung ; 
His last low swan-song had been sung ! 

4 ' His last ! And ours, dear friend, is near ; 
As clouds that rake the mountains here, 
"We too shall pass and disappear, 



170 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. xn. 

" Yet howsoever changed or tost, 
Not even a wreath of mist is lost, 
No atom can itself exhaust. 

" So shall the soul's superior force 
Live on and run its endless course 
In God's unlimited universe. 

"And we, whose brief reflections seem 
To fade like clouds from lake and stream, 
Shall brighten in a holier beam." 



CHAPTEE XIII 

CLOSING YEARS 

There was no literary man of his time who worked 
under such a lifelong embargo in respect to health as 
Whittier. He once said, " I inherited from my par- 
ents a nervous headache, and on account of it have 
never been able to do all I wished to do." Whittier's 
early trouble was regarded by physicians as a disease of 
the heart, and he was told that he must carefully avoid 
excitement. With care, as one of them assured him, 
he might live to be fifty years old. His headaches 
always pursued him, and he could not read continu- 
ously for half an hour without severe pain. At pub- 
lic dinners and receptions he was obliged to stipulate 
that he should be allowed to slip out when he felt 
fatigue coming on. It showed great strength of will 
surely for one man, combining the functions of author, 
politician, and general reformer, under such disad- 
vantages, to outlive his fellow chiefs, carry so many 
points for which he had toiled, and leave behind him 
seven volumes of his collected works. The most suc- 
cessful of these, "Snow-bound," was written to be- 
guile the weariness of a sick-chamber. 

When editor of the National Era he wrote to Miss 
Wendell that he should have spent the winter in 
Washington but for the state of his health and the 
difficulty of leaving home on his mother's account. 
In the same letter (2d. mo. 21, 1847) he wrote : — 

171 



172 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

" I have of late been able to write but little, and that 
mostly for the papers, and I have scarcely answered a letter 
for a month past. I dread to touch a pen. Whenever I 
do it increases the dull wearing pain in my head, which I 
am scarcely ever free from." * 

Yet at this time be was occasionally publishing eight 
or nine columns a week in the National Era, besides a 
large political correspondence. 

" Sleep," says Mrs. ClafTin, "was the one blessing that 
seemed to be denied him, and which he constantly longed 
for. He resorted to every simple remedy for insomnia — 
but it was all in vain — his was the ' sore disquiet of a 
restless brain,' and he would often come down in the morn- 
ing looking tired and worn from his long night of wakeful- 
ness, and say, ' It is of no use ; the sleep of the innocent is 
denied me. Perhaps I do not deserve it.' " 2 

While reticent and uncomplaining to strangers, we 
find him through life obliged to write to friends in 
such phrases as these, " I should have been glad to 
make Haverhill a visit in the winter, but the extremely 
delicate condition of my health has compelled me to 
forego that pleasure." " I now think some of going 
next week to New York and Philadelphia, partly to 
escape our east winds which I dread." " I think sick- 
ness has a wonderful effect in fanning into life the 
half-extinguished conscience. It is doubtless better 
for me and my friends that the hand of sickness is 
sometimes laid heavily upon me." 

Being a bad sleeper, " seldom," as he said, " putting a 
solid bar of sleep between day and day," he habitually 
rose early and, as he claimed, " had rarely missed see- 

1 Pickard's " Whittier," I. 319. 

2 Claflin's " Personal Recollections," p. 40. 



xm.] CLOSING YEARS 173 

ing the sun rise for forty years." " I have lately felt 

great sympathy with , w * he said one morning, " for 

I have been kept awake one hundred and twenty hours ; 
an experience I should not care to try again." He said 
also to Mrs. Fields : " I am forbidden to use my poor 
head, so I have to get along as I can without it. The 
Catholic St. Leon, thee knows, walked alert as usual 
after his head was cut off." " I cannot think very well 
of my own things," he elsewhere said to her ; " and 
what is mere fame worth when thee is at home alone and 
sick with headaches, unable either to read or to write ? " 
" He must often have known," adds this sympathetic 
friend, "the deeps of sadness in winter evenings, when 
he was too ill to touch book or pen, and when he could 
do nothing during the long hours but sit and think 
over the fire." 

This loss of sleep and other unfavourable symptoms 
were by no means due to a sedentary life. His love of 
nature was deep and constant, and more like that of 
Emerson and Thoreau, than that of Longfellow and 
Lowell. He liked to be actually immersed in outdoor 
life, not merely to enjoy it as an episode. He loved to 
recall his first stay among the hills, when "his parents 
took him where he could see the great wooded slope of 
Agamenticus." " As he looked up and gazed with awe 
at the solemn sight, a cloud drooped, and hung sus- 
pended, as it were, from one point, and filled his soul 
with astonishment. He had never forgotten it. He 
said nothing at the time, but this cloud hanging from 
the breast of the hill, filled his boyish mind with a 
mighty wonder, which had never faded away." 2 

It was to ill health, I think, that his renunciation 
i Fields's " Whittier," pp. 40, 59, 73. 2 ibid., p. 90. 



174 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

of all far-off travel was due. He once told me, how- 
ever, that perhaps the reason why he had never trav- 
elled, was that he had always been a great reader of 
books of travel, and after reading each one, had in his 
mind so vivid a picture of it that he wished to go 
somewhere else. What just ground have we to com- 
plain of this, when we know by Scott's own confession 
that his description of Melrose Abbey by moonlight, 
— one of the most widely quoted descriptions ever 
written, — was not written in presence of that beauti- 
ful spectacle, but quite the contrary ? He wrote to 
Bernard Barton : — 

"I was surprised into confessing what I might have as 
well kept to myself, that I had been guilty of sending per- 
sons a bat-hunting to see the ruins of Melrose by moonlight, 
which I never saw myself. The fact is rather curious, for 
as I have often slept nights at Melrose (when I did not re- 
side so near the place), it is singular that I have not seen it 
by moonlight on some chance occasion. However, it so 
happens that I never did, and must (unless I get cold on 
purpose) be contented with supposing that these ruins look 
very like other Gothic buildings which I have seen by the 
wan light of the moon." 1 

This was carried so far by Whittier that during all 
his visits to the White Mountains, he never could 
be tempted to go to Quebec, but said, "I know all 
about it, by books and pictures, as if I had seen it." 
Yet how much he enjoyed thus tasting in imagination 
the atmosphere and the life of a foreign land, is to be 
seen in a charming picture given by him to Mrs. Fields 
of a talk with a wandering Arab whom he once en- 
countered. 

*" Letters and Poems of Bernard Barton," by his daughter, 
p. 147. 



xiii.] CLOSING YEARS 175 

" ' I was in my garden,' he said, ' when I saw an Arab 
wander down the street, and by-and-by stop and lean against 
my gate. He held a small book in his hand, which he was 
reading from time to time when he was not occupied with 
gazing about him. Presently I went to talk with him, and 
found he had lived all his life on the edge of the desert until 
he started for America. He was very homesick, and longed 
for the time of his return. He had hired himself for a term of 
years to the master of the circus. He held the Koran in his 
hand, and was delighted to find a friend who had also read his 
sacred book. He opened his heart still further then, and said 
how he longed for his old, wild life in the Desert, for a sight 
of the palms, and the sands, but above all for its freedom. , " 1 

It would be interesting to find out what effect Whit- 
tier's physical condition had upon the production of a 
work quite unique among his prose writings, "The 
Opium Eater," published in the New England Magazine 
in 1833, in his twenty-fourth year. He spoke of it to 
Fields and others as something which he had almost 
entirely forgotten. But it is preserved by him, never- 
theless, in his works, 2 and certainly is, as he says, unique 
in respect to style. It is undoubtedly one of many 
similar productions coming from various pens and tak- 
ing De Quineey's " Confessions of an Opium Eater " 
as their model, though this is really better than the 
average of such attempts. The question of interest 
is to know how far this literary experiment — evi- 
dently a deliberate thing, from its length and careful 
structure — was in any way the result of his illness, 
and, as such, a passing phenomenon only. "The 
Proselytes," published in the same year, and re- 
printed in the same volume, looks somewhat in the 
same morbid and unhealthy direction, from which 
the mass of Whittier's writings is so wholly free. 

i Fields's " Whittier," p. 54. * « Works," I. 278. 



176 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

Whittier's later years were calm and prosperous. 
He held no public position after his early service in 
the Massachusetts Legislature, but during the period 
when the overseers of Harvard College were chosen 
by the legislature he once served, in 1858, as overseer, 
and alluded to this jocosely in a letter to Lowell, then 
editor of the Atlantic, as giving him authority over 
Lowell. He received the Harvard honorary degree of 
Master of Arts in 1860, and that of Doctor of Laws in 
1866, at the hundredth anniversary of the college, 
when he was the only literary man so decorated among 
a number of men of science, a fact which attracted 
some notice. He was made a trustee of Brown Uni- 
versity (Providence, E.I.) in 1869. He was chosen a 
member of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 
1863, and was borne upon its rolls for three years, 
but never accepted the office or even replied to the 
invitation, for some reason yet unexplained, so that 
his name was dropped. He declined membership of the 
Loyal Legion, a society of officers who had served on 
the Union side in the Civil War, and had a limited 
number of civilian members ; but this he refused as an 
organisation inconsistent with the principles of the 
Society of Friends. 

Whittier's seventieth birthday was celebrated more 
profusely than had happened to any American author 
before; and more so than was at first wholly congenial 
to his modest nature. The issue of a Literary World 
(Dec. 1, 1877), devoted to him wholly, on the part of 
various authors, he might have more easily endured ; 
but the elaborate dinner given him by the publishers 
of the Atlantic Monthly, at Hotel Brunswick, in Boston, 
(Dec. 17, 1877) was an ordeal from which he is known 



xiii.] CLOSING YEARS 177 

to have greatly shrunk; and I can testify that this 
reluctance was quite visible in his face and manner. 
Mr. Houghton presided, and gave a history of the maga- 
zine, after which he introduced Whittier, who could 
do no less in return than make one of the very few 
brief speeches into which he found himself driven in 
later life. He said : — 

"You must know you are not to expect a speech from me 
to-night. I can only say that I am very glad to meet with 
my friends of the Atlantic, a great many contributors to 
which I have only known through their writings, and that I 
thank them for the reception they have given me. When I 
supposed that I would not be able to attend this ceremony 
I placed in my friend Longfellow's hands a little bit of verse 
that I told him, if it were necessary, I wished he would read. 
My voice is of ' a timorous nature, and rarely to be heard above 
the breath.' Mr. Longfellow will do me the favour to read 
the writing. I shall be very much obliged to him, and hope 
at his ninetieth anniversary some of the younger men will do 
as much for him." 

After this, Longfellow, almost as shy of such 
functions as Whittier, could do no less than read the 
answering " Kesponse," which is here printed with 
the accompanying prefatory note, as it appears in 
Whittier's revised works. 

" Response 

11 On the occasion of my seventieth birthday in 1877, I was the 
recipient of many tokens of esteem. The publishers of the Atlantic 
Monthly gave a dinner in my name, and the editor of The Literary 
World gathered in his paper many affectionate messages from my 
associates in literature and the cause of human progress. The lines 
which follow were written in acknowledgment. 

"Beside that milestone where the level sun, 

Nigh unto setting, sheds his last low rays 
On word and work irrevocably done, 
Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun, 

N 



178 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

I hear, O friends ! your words of cheer and praise, 

Half doubtful if myself or otherwise. 

Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, 
A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke. 

Thanks not the less. With not unglad surprise 

I see my life-work through your partial eyes ; 

Assured, in giving to my home-taught songs 

A higher value than of right belongs, 

You do but read between the lines 

The finer grace of unfulfilled designs. " 1 

Emerson then read with his unique impressive- 
ness Whittier's "Ichabod"; Holmes and Stoddard 
read poems, and speeches were made by Story, Howells, 
Norton, Warner, and myself. So complete was the 
success of the enterprise, then rather a novel one in 
Boston, that it was followed by a similar entertainment 
on the seventieth birthday of Holmes, with the curious 
difference that Whittier, a lifelong advocate of the 
equality of sexes was greeted on this occasion by men 
only, while the far more conservative Holmes saw be- 
fore him a brilliant gathering of both men and women. 
I think it was the general agreement that the second 
celebration was even more successful than the first. 

Whittier of course made no speech on this later 
occasion, but he sent to the New York Critic on a 
subsequent birthday of his old friend, a summary of 
his qualities that was better than a speech. It is as 
follows : — 

" To the Editor of the New York ' Critic* 

"8th mo., 1884. 

" Poet, essayist, novelist, humourist, scientist, ripe scholar, 
and wise philosopher, if Dr. Holmes does not at the present 

i " Works," II. 168, 169. 



xiii.] CLOSING YEAES 179 

time hold in popular estimation the first place in American 
literature, his rare versatility is the cause. In view of 
the inimitable prose- writer, we forget the poet; in our 
admiration of his melodious verse, we lose sight of l Elsie 
Venner ' and ( The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.' We 
laugh over his wit and humour, until, to use his own 
words, — 

" * We suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, 
As if Wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root ; ' 

and perhaps the next page melts us into tears by a pathos 
only equalled by that of Sterne's sick Lieutenant. He is 
Montaigne and Bacon under one hat. His varied qualities 
would suffice for the mental furnishing of half a dozen lit- 
erary specialists. To those who have enjoyed the privilege 
of his intimate acquaintance, the man himself is more than 
the author. His genial nature, entire freedom from jealousy 
or envy, quick tenderness, large charity, hatred of sham, pre- 
tense, and unreality, and his reverent sense of the eternal 
and permanent, have secured for him something more and 
dearer than literary renown — the love of all who know him. 
I might say much more ; I could not say less. May his life 
be long in the land ! " 

The wish was fulfilled, and Holmes was the only 
one of Whittier's immediate circle of literary compan- 
ions who outlived him. 

In private life Whittier was, during these years, in 
many respects most fortunate, or at least as near it as 
a lonely man can be. In his own house at Amesbury 
he had the friendly companionship of Judge Cate and 
wife ; and during the summers he was for twelve years 
with his cousins, Joseph and Gertrude W. Cartland, 
at Intervale, N.H., or elsewhere among the White 
Mountains or wandered so far seaward as to be a 
housemate of Celia Thaxter and other cultivated per- 
sons at Appledore among the Isles of Shoals, or 



180 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

Greenacre in Maine. In winter he made his home — 
after the marriage of his niece who had kept house for 
him — at Oak Knoll in Danvers, a beautiful estate 
where his cousins Mrs. Woodman and the three Miss 
Johnsons resided; a place made more interesting to 
him from the fact that it had been the abode of the 
Eev. George Burroughs, who had been put to death 
during the witchcraft excitement, two centuries before. 
He always, however, retained his home and citizen- 
ship in Amesbury, went thither to vote and to attend 
Quarterly Meetings, and toward the end of his life 
made it his residence once more. 

One of his enjoyments in later years was in recall- 
ing his memories of his early friend Lydia Maria 
Child, whose experience of life had so much in com- 
mon with his own; and in serving her memory by 
editing a volume of her letters (1883). In his intro- 
duction he says of her "Appeal for that class of 
Americans called Africans " : — 

" It is quite impossible for any one of the present genera- 
tion to imagine the popular surprise and indignation which 
the book called forth, or how entirely its author cut herself 
off from the favour and sympathy of a large number of those 
who had previously delighted to do her honour. Social and 
literary circles, which have been proud of her presence, closed 
their doors against her. The sale of her books, the sub- 
scriptions to her magazine, fell off to a ruinous extent. She 
knew all she was hazarding, and made the great sacrifice, 
prepared for all the consequences that followed. ... It is 
not exaggeration to say that no man or woman of that 
period rendered more substantial service to the cause of 
freedom, or made such a great renunciation in doing it." 

Nor is it exaggeration to say that no man or woman 
of that period was so fairly to be classed with her as 



xiii.] CLOSING YEARS 181 

was the writer of these words. She had before this 
time passed away, having died in 1880. 

A speech before the Essex Clnb by Senator Hoar, a 
few weeks before Whittier's eightieth birthday, brought 
forth one of the most striking tributes ever paid to an 
American author. It consisted of Senator Hoar's 
speech, followed by the signatures of all the Essex 
Club, of fifty-nine United States Senators, the entire 
bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, — 
headed by Chief Justice Waite, — of Speaker Carlisle 
of the House of Eepresentatives, and three hundred 
and thirty-three Members of the House, coming from 
every state and territory in the Union. To these were 
added the names of many private citizens of distinc- 
tion, such as George Bancroft, Eobert C. Winthrop, 
James G. Blaine, and Frederick Douglass. In that 
same year (1887) a companion tribute came in more 
concentrated form across the ocean. 

In 1887, Mr. George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, 
generously offered to defray the expense of a Milton 
memorial window in St. Margaret's Church, London. 
The offer was accepted, and in October of that year, 
Archdeacon Frederick W. Farrar wrote to him as 
follows : — 

" The Milton window is making good progress. It will 
be, I hope, magnificently beautiful, and both in colouring 
and design will be worthy of your munificence, and worthy 
of the mighty poet to whose memory it will be dedicated. 
The artists are taking good pains with it. I sent you an 
outline of the sketch not long ago. Before the end of the 
year I hope to send you a painting of the complete work. 
Messrs. Clayton and Bell are putting forth their best strength, 
and promise me that it shall be finished before the end of the 
Jubilee Year. When it is put in, I shall make your gift 



182 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

more universally known. Mr. Lowell wrote me a quatrain 
for the Raleigh window. I can think of no one so suitable 
as Mr. J. Gt. Whittier to write four lines for the Milton win- 
dow. Mr. Whittier would feel the fullest sympathy for the 
great Puritan poet, whose spirit was so completely that of 
the Pilgrim Fathers. I have always loved and admired Mr. 
Whittier's poems. Could you ask him as a kindness to your- 
self and to me, and as a tribute to Milton's memory, if he 
would be so good as to write this brief inscription, which I 
would then have carved in marble or otherwise under the 
window. The same tablet will also record that it is your 
gift to the church of the House of Commons, which was 
dearer to Milton than any other." 

Mr. Childs forwarded this letter to Mr. Whittier, 
who accepted the commission, and composed the fol- 
lowing quatrain : — 

" The new world honours him whose lofty plea 

For England's freedom made her own more sure, 
Whose song, immortal as its theme, shall be 
Their common freehold while both worlds endure." 

These lines were sent to Mr. Childs, to be forwarded 
to Archdeacon Farrar, in a letter from Mr. Whittier 
of which the following is a copy : — 

" I am glad to comply with thy request and that of our 
friend Archdeacon Farrar. I hope the lines may be satis- 
factory. It is difficult to put all that could be said of Milton 
into four lines. How very heartfelt and noble thy benefac- 
tions are ! Every one is a testimony of peace and good will. 
... I think even such a scholar as Dr. Farrar will not 
object to my use of the word ' freehold.' Milton himself uses 
it in the same way in his prose writings, viz., ' I too have 
my chapter and freehold of rejoicing.' " 

Mr. Whittier suggested to Dr. Farrar that if thought 
preferable the word " heirloom " might be substituted 



xiii.] CLOSING YEARS 183 

for "freehold." This is the Archdeacon's reply, dated 
Jan. 2, 1888 : — 

" First let me express the wish that God's best blessings 
may rest on you and your house during this New Year. My 
personal gratitude and admiration have long been due to you 
for the noble influence you have exercised for the furtherance 
of forgotten but deeply needed truths. I have myself en- 
deavoured to do something to persuade men of the lesson you 
have so finely taught, — that God is a loving Father, not 
a terrific Moloch. Next let me thank you for the four lines 
on Milton. They are all that I can desire, and they will 
add to the interest which all Englishmen and Americans will 
feel in the beautiful Milton window. I think that if Milton 
had now been living, you are the poet whom he would have 
chosen to speak of him, as being the poet with whose whole 
tone of mind he would have been most in sympathy. . . . 
Unless you wish 'heirloom' to be substituted for ' freehold,' 
I will retain the latter as the original." 

Whittier was taken with his last illness while visit- 
ing at the house of his friend, Miss Sarah A. Gove of 
Hampton Falls, N.H., seven miles from Amesbury. 
Miss Gove was the daughter of an old friend ; of " that 
saintly woman whom we associate with one of the most 
spiritual and beautiful of his poems, 'A Friend's 
Burial.'" 1 

On September 3, he had a slight paralytic stroke 
which produced a difficulty in taking food or medicine, 
and it was plain that he could not be removed to Ames- 
bury, where he had always hoped to die. He was con- 
scious to the last, was grateful to every one ; and 
several times said " Love to all the world." He died 
in serene and quiet constancy to that feeling of affec- 
tion, and had little acute pain. He lay all night in 

iFields's " Whittier," p. 101. 



184 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [chap. 

peace, and died in the morning, one of the relatives 
present reciting softly his poem "At Last," as he 
passed away. This poem, written ten years before, is 
his best epitaph. 

"At Last 

" When on my day of life the night is falling, 

And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, 
I hear far voices out of darkness calling 
My feet to paths unknown. 

" Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, 
Leave not its tenant when its walls decay ; 

Love Divine, O Helper ever present, 
Be Thou my strength and stay ! 

" Be near me when all else is from me drifting ; 

Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, 
And kindly faces to my own uplifting 
The love which answers mine. 

" I have but Thee, my Father ! let Thy spirit 
Be with me then to comfort and uphold ; 
No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, 
Nor street of shining gold. 

" Suffice it if — my good and ill unreckoned, 

And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace — 

1 find myself by hands familiar beckoned 
Unto my fitting place. 

u Some humble door among Thy many mansions, 

Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, 
And flows forever through heaven's green expansions 
The river of Thy peace. 



xiii.] CLOSING YEARS 185 

" There, from the music round about me stealing, 
I fain would learn the new and holy song, 
And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, 
The life for which I long." 
1882.1 

The following simple and touching picture of his 
funeral is from the historical address on Whittier by 
his friend Eobert S. Eantoul. 

" I attended his funeral. The day was ideal — a cloud- 
less September sky above, a wealth of autumn beauty all 
about. No word was uttered in speech or song that day 
but it was apt, spontaneous, sincere. I think I never 
joined in obsequies more fit. Their simplicity was absolute. 
The poet Stedman spoke as few men can, and with a grace 
and aptness which, perfect as they were, yet seemed un- 
studied. It was hard to say whether deep feeling or critical 
characterisation were the leading quality of his words. And 
the Hutchinsons sang ' Lay Him Low ' as if it had been 
written for themselves and for the day ; and the sister Friends, 
whose habit of speech in public gatherings made the part 
they took seem only the expected thing, bore testimony from 
out the depths of their experience to what the world had 
come at last to know." 

i " Works," II. 333. 



INDEX 



Abruzzi, the, 14. 

Adams, C. F., 44. 

Adams, John, 69. 

Adams, John Quincy, 43. 

Albany, N.Y., 77. 

Alembert, d', J. L., 165. 

Allingham, William, 152. 

Allinson, Francis Greenleaf, 
Whittier's poem " My Name- 
sake " addressed to, 131, 132. 

America, 23, 57, 71, 94, 153, 175. 

American Manufacturer, the, 
mentioned, 25, 34, 137. 

Amesbury, Mass., 4, 10, 46, 77, 
82, 87, 89, 92, 93, 98, 99, 107, 
109, 111, 122, 124, 136, 137, 167, 
179, 180, 183 ; Ten Hour Bill at, 
86, 87 ; Derby strike at, 87, 88. 

" Amy Wentworth," 3, 142. 

Antislavery Society, American, 
71, 72, 74, 77. 

Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, 129. 

Appledore Island, 179. 

Armstrong, Gen. S. C, 98. 

Arnold, Matthew, 20, 140. 

Asquam House, 169. 

Athenaeum Gallery, 135. 

Atlantic Club, 89, 104. 

Atlantic Monthly, cited, 50 ; men- 
tioned, 143, 176, 177; quoted, 
153, 154. 

Aubigne, d', J. H. M., 166. 

Augustine, Saint, 116. 

Austin, Ann, 84. 

Bachiler, Rev. Stephen, 5, 6. 
Bacon, Francis, 38, 179; quoted, 

150. 
Baltimore, Md., 48, 79. 



Bancroft, George, 100, 181. 

Banks, Gen. N. P., 47. 

Barbadoes, 85. 

"Barclay of Ury," 56. 

"Barefoot Boy, The," quoted, 
14-16. 

Barnard, F. A. P., 35. 

Barton, Bernard, 25; the ''Let- 
ters and Poems of," quoted, 
174. 

Batchelder, Charles E., 6 n. 

Batchelder family, 19, 156. 

Bates, Charlotte Fiske (Madame 
Roger), Whittier's letter to, 
128-130. 

Beacon Street, Boston, 3. 

Bearcamp River, 143. 

Bell, Mr., 181. 

Bellingham, Dep. Gov., treat- 
ment of Quakers, 84. 

Benezet, Anthony, 49, 51. 

Bennington, Vt., 25, 73. 

Blaine, James G., 181. 

Border Ruffians, 78. 

Boston, Mass., 1, 3, 19, 25, 26, 32, 
34, 46, 50, 51, 57, 60, 62, 74-78, 
81, 85, 88, 91, 108-111, 127, 135, 
157, 176, 178; libraries, 34; 
newspapers, 61 ; first Quakers 
in, 84. 

Boston Transcript, quoted, 90; 
mentioned, 98, 164. 

Boutwell, G. S., 97. 

Bowditch, Dr. Henry I., 78. 

Bowen, H. C, 143. 

Brahmo-Somaj, 116. 

Brainard, J. G. C, 37. 

Brazil, 100. 

Bremer, Miss Fredrika, 110. 



187 



188 



INDEX 



Bright, John, 94, 112; Whittier 
on, 113. 

Brown, David Paul, 62. 

Brown, J. Brownlee, his " Tha- 
latta," mentioned, 163. 

Brown, Capt. John, 78, 79. 

BrowD University, 176. 

Browning, Elizabeth B., 142, 165 ; 
her ' ' Sonnets from the Portu- 
guese," mentioned, 166. 

Browning, Robert, 153. 

Bryant, William C, 37, 156. 

Burleigh, Charles C., 63. 

Burlington, N.J., 131. 

Burns, Robert, 19, 88, 109; Whit- 
tier compared with, 152. 

Burroughs, George, 18, 103. 

Burroughs, Rev. George, 180. 

Butler, Gen. B. F., 110. 

Byron, Lord, 33. 

Campbell, Mr., 94. 

Campbell's restaurant, 83. 

Canada, 10. 

Carlisle, J. G., 181. 

Carlton, Mr., 33. 

Cartland, Mrs. Gertrude W., 
quoted, 58, 59. 

Cartland, Joseph, 179. 

Cary, Alice, visits Whittier, 
108. 

Cary, Phoebe, 98 ; visits Whittier, 
108. 

" Cassandra Southwick," 155, 
157-159. 

Cate, Hon. George W., 126, 179; 
quoted about Whittier and 
Amesbury strike, 87, 88 ; quoted 
about Whittier and spiritual- 
ism, 127. 

Century Magazine, mentioned, 
137. 

Channing, Rev. Dr. William 
Ellery, 81, 103; Whittier writes 
to, 75; his position on anti- 
slavery question, 76. 

Chapman, Maria Weston, 71, 72, 



81 ; her view of Whittier, 67 ; 
of Channing, 76. 

Charbonnier, J. D., his letter to 
Whittier, 167 ; Whittier's letter 
to, 167, 168. 

Chardon Street Chapel, Boston, 
81. 

Chase, G. W., his History of 
Haverhill, quoted, 56, 57. 

Chatterton, Thomas, 24. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 141. 

Child, Mrs. Lydia Maria, 75, 76; 
her account of Thompson mob, 
59-61 ; Whittier's letters to, 78, 
79, 90, 91 ; her generosity, 98 ; 
her letters edited by Whittier, 
180. 

Child, Rev. Dr., 84. 

Childs, George W., gives a Milton 
memorial window, 181, 182. 

Civil War, 90, 168, 176. 

Clanin, Mary B., 100, 159; her 
" Personal Recollections of 
John G. Whittier," quoted, 99, 
101, 102, 110-112, 116, 117, 125, 
126, 130, 136, 172. 

Claflin, Hon. William, 99. 

Clarkson, Thomas, 33. 

Clay, Henry, 42, 68, 69, 77 ; Whit- 
tier friendly to, 26; opposed 
to, 49. 

Clayton, Mr., 181. 

Coates, Lindley, 52. 

Coffin, Joshua, 18, 53 ; descrip- 
tion of, 19. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 76, 104 ; 
quoted, 77; his "Christabel," 
mentioned, 162. 

Coleridge, Sara, 36. 

Collier, Mr., 32. 

Columbia College, 35. 

Concord, Mass., 111. 

Concord, N.H., 58, 61, 65. 

Congress, United States, 39, 40, 
42, 43, 138. 

Country Brook, 6, 7, 11. 

Covington, Ky., 137. 



INDEX 



189 



Cowper, William, his "Lament 
for the Royal George," men- 
tioned, 159. 

Crandall, Dr. Reuben, impris- 
oned, 48; death, 49. 

Cushing, Caleb, 40, 42, 69, 77; 
candidate for Congress, 41; 
elected, 43; defeated, 43, 44. 

Dana, R. H., 42. 

Dan vers, Mass., 97, 180. 

Dartmouth College, 19. 

Declaration of Independence of 
United States, 69. 

Declaration of Sentiments, 74. 

Deer Island, 107. 

De Quincey, Thomas, his " Con- 
fessions of an Opium Eater," 
mentioned, 175. 

Derby, Mr., 88. 

Dexter, Lord Timothy, 97. 

Dinsmore, Robert, 155. 

Douglass, Frederick, 181. 

Douw, Gerard, 9. 

Dustin, Hannah, 4. 

Earle, Edward, 121. 

East Haverhill, Mass., 23, 51, 58. 

East Salisbury, Mass., 44. 

Edinburgh, Scotland, 107. 

Elliot, Me., 142. 

Ellis, Rev. G. E., 83. 

Emancipator, the, mentioned, 67. 

Emerson, Nehemiah, 137. 

Emerson, Mrs. Nehemiah, 137. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 2, 37, 
127,151,159,173,178; his "Life 
and Letters in New England," 
quoted, 80; Whittier's letter 
to, 46, 47; acquaintance with 
Whittier, 110, 111. 

Endicott, Gov. John, 83-85. 

England, 1, 26, 28, 50, 96, 104, 
113, 152, 163. 

Era, the, mentioned, 109. 

Essex Agricultural Society, 
Whittier's letter to, 19, 20. 



Essex Club, 181. 

Essex County, Mass., 19, 20, 50, 

138, 155. 
Europe, 13. 
Evarts, W. M., 97. 
Everett, Edward, 43. 

Faneuil Hall, Boston, 75. 

Farrar, Archdeacon, F. W., asks 
Whittier to write inscription 
for Milton Memorial Window, 
181, 182 ; his letter to Whittier, 
183. 

Federal Street, Boston, 60. 

Felice, Professor de, 167. 

Feuillevert family, 156. 

Fields, James T., 91, 102. 

Fields, Mrs. J. T., 86, 159, 174, 
183; her Whittier, quoted, 65, 
113, 117, 126-128, 140, 152, 172, 
173, 175. 

Fisher, Mary, 84. 

Fletcher, J. C, 166, 167. 

Follymill, 141. 

Folsom, Abby, 81. 

Fox, George, 116, 124. 

France, 97. 

Freeman, the, mentioned, 115. 

Free Press, the, mentioned, 23, 
25, 73. 

Free Soil party, 68. 

Friends' 1 Review, mentioned, 121 ; 
quoted, 122-124. 

Friends, Society of, 2, 4, 10, 13, 
17, 50, 51, 115, 116, 161, 162, 
176; Whittier's relation to, 
118-124. 

Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 112. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 2, 18, 
32, 34, 49-52, 57, 78, 81, 129, 
135, 157; discovers Whittier, 
21; his "Life," quoted, 22-26, 
49, 50, 61, 71; cited, 26 n.; 
mentioned, 67 ; visits Whittier, 
24 ; Introduction to Whittier's 
poems, 25 ; his Journal of the 



190 



INDEX 



Times quoted, 25; men- 
tioned, 73; Whittier's letters 
to, 26, 49, 50 ; relation between 
Whittier and, 26, 66, 67, 69, 71, 
72; his letters, 26, 27; seeks 
Whittier's aid in antislavery 
movement, 48 ; Whittier's 
verses to, 54, 55; on Concord 
mob, 61; Garrison mob, 62; 
his party, 68; his tribute to 
Whittier, 72; Whittier's trib- 
ute to, 72-75; differs from 
Whittier, 75; compared with 
Whittier, 95, 96. 

Geneva, Switzerland, 166. 

Georgetown, Mass., 89, 90. 

Gerry, Gov. Elb ridge, 31. 

Gordon, Gen. C. G., 78, 112, 
113. 

Gorton, Samuel, 84. 

Gove, Sarah A., 183. 

Gray, Thomas, his " Elegy," 
mentioned, 159. 

Greenacre, Me., 180. 

Greene, Mrs. Nathaniel, 19. 

Greenleaf, Sarah, 5. 

Greenwood, Grace. See Lippin- 
cott. 

Grimke, Angelina, 115. 

Griswold, Rufus W., " Letters" 
of, quoted, 108, 109. 

Hampton Falls, N.H., 183. 

Hampton, N.H., 85. 

Hampton, Va., school at, 98. 

Hanmer and Phelps, 35. 

Harmon, Capt., 36. 

Harper's Ferry, Va., 79. 

Hartford, Conn., 34, 35, 37, 137, 
138. 

Harvard University, 3; law 
school, 88; confers honorary 
degree on Whittier, 176. 

Haverhill Gazette, the, men- 
tioned, 27, 28, 48, 88, 103; Whit- 
tier edits, 34. 

Haverhill, Mass., 3-5, 10, 19, 20, 



22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 37, 45, 
49, 50, 59, 74, 89, 137, 138, 155, 
172; academy at, 27, 28, 30, 
137; antislavery meeting at, 
56, 57. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 35, 36; 
Whittier's acquaintance with, 
111, 112. 

Hayne, Paul H., his poem about 
Whittier, 113, 114. 

Hazlitt, William, his essay "On 
the Conversation of Authors," 
quoted, 105. 

Healy, Joseph, 76. 

Hemans, Mrs. Felicia D., 166. 

"Henchman, The," 143-145. 

Hicksite school of Friends, 53; 
Hicksite principle, 116. 

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 
126; Whittier's letters to, 44, 
45, 87, 96-98. 

Hoar, Hon. G. F., 181. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 2, 37, 
104, 130, 141, 151, 178 ; his "The 
Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table," mentioned, 150; his 
"The Chambered Nautilus," 
mentioned, 150, 163; Whittier's 
summary of qualities of, 178, 
179. 

Hotel Brunswick, Boston, dinner 
at, 176. 

Houghton, H. O., 177. 

Howard, John, 33. 

Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, 82. 

Howells, William D., 178; his 
" Hazard of New Fortunes," 
mentioned, 86. 

Hussey, Christopher, 5. 

Hussey, Mercy, 10, 31. 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, 84. 

Hutchinsons, the, 185. 

Indians, American, 4, 36, 98. 
Intervale, N.H., 179. 
Ipswich, Mass., 85. 
Irving, Washington, 35, 37. 



INDEX 



191 



Isles of Shoals, 127, 179. 
Italy, 166, 167. 

Jackson, Mrs. Helen, her " Spo- 
ken," mentioned, 163. 

James II., 6. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 69. 

Johnson, Oliver, his "William 
Lloyd Garrison and his Times," 
mentioned, 72 ; introduction to, 
quoted, 73-75. 

Johnson, Samuel 162. 

Johnson, the Misses, 180. 

Journal of the Times, the, quoted, 
25 ; mentioned, 73. 

Julian Hall, Boston, 59. 

Kansas, 64, 78. 
Keats, John, 50, 142. 
Kelley, Abby, 81. 
Kellogg, F. W., 108. 
Kennebec River, 36. 
Kennedy, William S., his " Whit- 
tier," quoted, 84-86. 
Kent, Colonel, 58. 
Kent, George, 58, 59. 
Kittery, Me., 142. 
Kittredge, Mr., 41, 42. 
Knapp, Isaac, 76. 

La Fontaine, de, Jean, 160. 

Lamb, Charles, 105, 126, 128. 

Latimer, George, case of, 94. 

Law, Jonathan, 38. 

Law, Mrs. Jonathan, 39. 

Leverett Street, Boston, 74. 

Liberator, the, established, 48; 
mentioned, 6Q, 76, 78. 

Liberty Party, the, 68. 

Linton, W. J., 145, 165; his 
" Whittier," quoted, 64; cited, 
166 n. 

Lippincott, Mrs. Sarah J., Whit- 
tier's letter to, 45, 46. 

Literary World, the, quoted, 98, 
99; mentioned, 176, 177. 

Little Pilgrim, the, mentioned, 6. 



Livermore, Harriet, 13. 

Lloyd, Elizabeth (Mrs. Howell) , 
139. 

London, England, 77, 181. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 
37, 104, 141, 152, 155, 159, 162, 
173, 177 ; leading poet, 1 ; com- 
pared with Whittier, 1; his 
" Hyperion," mentioned, 151; 
his "Kavanagh," mentioned, 
151; quoted in England, 163; 
his "AVreck of the Hesperus," 
mentioned, 163 ; his ' ' Sir Hum- 
phrey Gilbert," mentioned, 
163; his " The Fire of Drift- 
wood," mentioned, 163; Whit- 
tier's words on death of, 169, 
170. 

Long Wharf, Boston, 60. 

Lowell, James Russell, 2, 28, 37, 
54, 104, 141, 155, 159, 161, 173, 
176, 182; his " Moosehead 
Journal," mentioned, 151; his 
"Ona Certain Condescension 
in Foreigners," mentioned, 151 ; 
his " Verses suggested by the 
Present Crisis, " mentioned, 160. 

Lowell, Mass., 87. 

Loyal Legion, the, 176. 

" Mabel Martin," 165. 
Macaulay, T..B., quoted, 7. 
McKim, J. Miller, describes 

Whittier, 54. 
Maine, 53. 

Martineau, Dr. James, 163. 
Massachusetts, 3, 41, 44, 45, 50, 

83, 85, 94, 110. 
Massachusetts Colony, 84. 
Massachusetts Historical Society, 

83, 86, 176. 
Mather, Cotton, his " Magnalia," 

mentioned, 35. 
May, Rev. Samuel J., 52, 59-62; 

reads Declaration, 53 ; mobbed, 

56,57. 
Mead, Edwin D., 163. 



192 



INDEX 



Mead, Mrs. Edwin D., 163. 

Melrose Abbey, 174. 

"Memories," 147-149. 

Merrill, John, 42. 

Merriinac River, 4 ; valley of, 53, 
155. 

Milton, John, 139, 152; G. W. 
Childs gives window as memo- 
rial of, 181 ; Whittier writes 
inscription for memorial win- 
dow, 182; Dr. Farrar's letter 
about, 183. 

Minot, George, 30. 

Minot, Harriet. See Pitman. 

Minot, Hon. Stephen, 29. 

Montaigne, Michel de, 179. 

Mott, Lncretia, letter of, 71. 

Mt. Agamenticus, 173. 

Music Hall, Boston, 110. 

" My Birthday," 132-134. 

" My Namesake," 131, 132. 

" My Playmate," 141. 

National Era, mentioned, 165, 
171, 172. 

Neall, Elizabeth, Whittier's let- 
ter to, 70, 71. 

Nebraska, 46. 

New England, 3, 8, 18, 47, 141 ; 
life in, 31. 

New England Historical and 
Genealogical Register, cited, 
6n. 

New England Magazine, men- 
tioned, 32, 175. 

New England Review, men- 
tioned, 37, 48; Whittier edits, 
34. 

New Hampshire, 7, 35, 101. 

New Jersey, 120. 

New Orleans, paper of, gives ac- 
count of Philadelphia fire, 63, 
64. 

New York, N.Y., 77, 91, 108, 109, 
172. 

New York Critic, quoted, 178, 
179. 



New York Independent, the, 
quoted, 89, 143-145. 

New York Nation, the, men- 
tioned, 81; quoted, 82. 

Newbury, Mass., 18, 53. 

Newburyport, Mass., 21, 41, 42, 
107. 

Newport, R.I., 92, 98, 100, 121. 

Nicolini, Giovanni, 167. 

Norton, Professor C. E., 178. 

Oak Knoll, Danvers, 97, 180. 
Ohio, 108. 
Osgood, Dr., 81. 
Otway, Thomas, 24. 

Paine, Thomas, 57. 

Palfrey, J. G., 44. 

Palmer, Mrs. Alice Freeman, 91. 

Parkman, Francis, 93. 

Parliament of Religions, meets 
at Chicago, 162. 

Patmore, Coventry, 159. 

Paul, Jean. See Richter. 

Peabody, George, erects Memo- 
rial Church, 89; criticism of 
Memorial, 90. 

Peasley, Joseph, 5. 

Pedro II., Dom, his acquaintance 
with Whittier, 100, 101. 

Penn, William, 3, 119. 

Pennsylvania, 51, 52, 77. 

Pennsylvania Antislavery So- 
ciety, 63. 

Pennsylvania Freeman, the, 
mentioned, 62, 65. 

Pennsylvania Hall, 115 ; burning 
of, 63, 64. 

Phelps, Amos A., 81. 

Phelps, William L., 137. 

Philadelphia, Penn., 6, 49-52, 62, 
74, 77, 115, 121, 122, 139, 172, 
181 ; burning of hall and church 
in, 63-65. 

Philadelphia Society, 76. 

Philanthropist, the, mentioned, 
32, 33. 



INDEX 



193 



Pickard, Samuel T., 4, 39, 40, 159, 
165; his "Whittier," quoted, 
32, 33, 37, 38, 41, 42, 45-47, 70, 
71, 81, 90, 91, 109, 128-130, 135, 
172; cited, 5 n. f 39 n., 76 n. y 
77 n., 115 n. 

Pierpont, Rev. John, 81. 

Pike, Robert, 5. 

Pitman, Mrs. Harriet Minot, 57 ; 
her description of Whittier, 
29-32. 

Pius IX., 88. 

Plato, 38, 111. 

Plymouth, N.H., 58. 

Poe, Edgar A., 37. 

Porlock, 162. 

Porter, Mrs. Maria S., 141. 

Portland, Me., 65. 

Portsmouth, N.H., 3. 

Powow River, 4. 

Prentice, George D., his letter to 
Whittier, 34, 35. 

Purdy, Mr., 42. 

Quakers, 5, 112, 155; character 

of, 118-120. 
Quebec, 174. 
Quincy family, 52. 

Radical Club, 100, 102. 

Ramoth Hill, 141. 

Rantoul, Robert S., 109; quoted, 
86 ; his delineation of Whittier, 
110; his description of Whit- 
tier's funeral, 185. 

Republican party, 68. 

Reynolds, Mrs., 105. 

Richardson, Samuel, 165. 

Richter, Jean Paul, 21. 

Robinson, Gov. G. D., 110. 

Rogers, Nathaniel P., 58. 

Rolfe, Henry, 5. 

Rosa, Salvator, 14. 

Rossetti, Dante G., 145; Whit- 
tier's fondness for the ballad 
of " Sister Helen," 117, 118. 

Russ, Cornelia, 137, 138. 
o 



St. Margaret's Church, London, 
181. 

St. Pierre, eruption at, 142. 

Salem, Mass., 10, 28, 58, 85, 109. 

Salisbury, Lord, 113. 

Salisbury, Mass., 4, 107. 

Saltonstall, Leverett, 28. 

Salvator. See Rosa. 

Sargent, Mrs. John T., her 
Sketches and Reminiscences of 
the Radical Club, quoted, 100, 
101. 

Sargent, Rev. John T., 100. 

Scotland, 6. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 107, 109; his 
"Fair Maid of Perth," men- 
tioned, 7; quoted about Mel- 
rose Abbey, 174. 

Sedgwick, Catherine M., 16. 

Sewall, Samuel E., 50, 51, 68. 

Sewall family, 52. 

Shakespeare, William, 19, 150, 
152, 154. 

Shaw, Col. Robert Gould, 112. 

Shipley, Thomas, 52. 

Sigourney, Mrs. L. H., 35; Whit- 
tier's letter to, 37, 38. 

Sims, Thomas, case of, 46. 

"Sisters, The," 145-147. 

Smalley, George W., 94. 

Smith, Mary Emerson, the object 
of Whittier's poem "Memo- 
ries," 137, 138. 

" Snow-Bound," quoted, 6,8-13. 

Southampton, England, 4. 

South Carolina, 60, 115. 

Stanton, Henry B., 77. 

Stedman, Edmund C, 185; his 
opinion of Whittier, 154-157. 

Sterne, Laurence, 37, 103, 179. 

Stetson, Mr., 59. 

Stoddard, R. H., 178. 

Story, W. W., 178. 

Stowe, Dr. C. E., 104. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 104; 
acquaintance with Whittier, 
112. 



194 



INDEX 



Sumner, Charles, 44, 46, 47, 102, 
103; elected to U.S. Senate, 45. 
Swift, Jonathan, 94, 103. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 36, 142, 152; 
on Whittier's " My Playmate," 
141. 

Thaxter, Mrs. Celia, Whittier at 
home of, 127, 128, 179. 

Thayer, Abijah W., 27, 42, 88; 
tries to publish Whittier's 
poems, 29; Whittier's letter 
to, 32, 33; supports Whittier, 41. 

Thayer, Professor James B., 88. 

Thomas, Judge, 137, 138. 

Thompson, George, 62, 65 ; comes 
to America, 57 ; encounter with 
mobs, 58-61; writes about ad- 
ventures, 61. 

Thoreau, Henry D., 173. 

Thurston, David, 53. 

Torre Pellice, Piemont, Italy, 167. 

Tremont House, Boston, 59. 

Trumbull, Governor John, 51. 

Tuckerman, Henry T., 109. 

Tufts, Henry, 18, 103. 

Tyson, Elisha, 49. 

Underwood, Francis H., his 
" Whittier," quoted, 29-32, 58-61. 

United States, 100; Supreme 
Bench of, 181. 

United States Senate, 44; Sum- 
ner elected to, 45. 

Van Bur en, Martin, 68. 
"Vaudois Teacher, The," 166- 

168. 
Ventura, Father, 88. 
Vere, Aubrey de, 36. 
Vermont, 35. 
Villager, the, 87. 
Virginia, 157. 

Waldensian Synod, 166. 
Ward, Mrs. E. S. P., acquaint- 
ance with Whittier, 112. 



Wardwell, Lydia, 85. 

Warner, C. D., 178. 

Washburn, E. A., 97. 

Washington, D.C., 26, 48, 99, 171. 

Wasson, David A., his opinion of 
Whittier, 153, 154. 

Webster, Daniel, 6, 58, 156. 

Webster, Ezekiel, 58. 

Weld, Theodore, D., 115. 

Wendell, Ann E., 171; Whittier's 
letter to, 81, 172. 

Wendell, Professor Barrett, his 
Literary History of America, 
quoted, 96. 

West Amesbury, Mass., 45. 

Wheelwright, Rev. John, 84. 

White Mountains, the, 174, 179. 

Whitman, Walt, 106. 

Whit son, Thomas, 53. 

Whittier, Elizabeth Hussey, 57 ; 
her poetic gifts, 31; attends 
women's antislavery conven- 
tion, 62 ; description of, 107, 108. 

Whittier, John (father of poet), 
24, 27. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf, much 
read in England, 1 ; compared 
with Longfellow, 1,2; interest 
in reforms, 3; birth, 4; ances- 
try, 4, 5; his homestead, 6-8 ; 
his " Snow-Bound," quoted, 6, 
8-13; his " Works," quoted, 6, 
7, 19, 29, 34, 35, 52-55, 73-75, 
84, 122-124, 166, 184, 185; cited, 
25 n., 35 n., 139 n., 175 n. ; 
family group, 9-14, 107, 108; 
describes himself in " The Bare- 
foot Boy," 14-16; his farm du- 
ties, 16, 17, 19, 20; his early 
reading, 17-19; his letters, 19, 

20, 26, 32, 33, 37, 38, 41, 42, 44- 
47, 49, 50, 70, 71, 78, 79, 81, 82, 
90, 92, 93, 96-98, 108, 109, 128- 
130, 167, 168, 182; early poems, 

21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29; early ac- 
quaintance with Garrison, 22- 
24; edits " American Manufac- 



INDEX 



195 



turer," 25,34; relation to Gar- 
rison, 26, 27, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 
87 ; his " Justice and Expedien- 
cy," mentioned, 27, 40; studies 
at Academy, 27; personal ap- 
pearance, 29, 30, 94, 95 ; charac- 
ter, 30-32; offered editorship 
of the Philanthropist, 32; 
plunges into journalism, 33; 
edits Haverhill Gazette and 
New England Review, 34; let- 
ters to, 34, 35, 118-120, 167 
183 ; his social life at Hartford 
35; first volume called "Le- 
gend of New England," 35, 36 
difference between youthful 
and mature poetry, 36, 37 
gives up editorship of New 
England Review, 37; public 
life, 38, 39; in politics, 40-43; 
defeats Caleb Cushing, 43 ; po- 
litical foresight, 44 ; his view of 
Sumner's election, 45, 46; of 
party organization, 46, 47 ; be- 
comes an ally of the antislav- 
ery movement, 48; opposes 
Clay, 49; attends antislav- 
ery convention, 50 ; his account 
of the convention, 51-53; J. M. 
McKim's description of, 54; 
his verses to Garrison, 54, 55 ; 
encounters first violence in 
antislavery cause, 56; conceals 
George Thompson, 58; encoun- 
ters with mobs, 58, 59, 61, 
62; edits Pennsylvania Free- 
man, 62 ; burning of his Phila- 
delphia office, 63, 64 ; memorial 
of mob period, 65 ; a leader of 
the Disunionists, 68; Garri- 
son's tribute to, 72; his tribute 
to Garrison, 72-75; differs 
from Garrison, 75; writes to 
Channing, 75 ; first edition of 
poems, 76 ; moves to Amesbury, 
77; service to freedom, 77; 
Quaker principle, 78; interest 



in reform, 80 ; his ' * Tent on the 
Beach," 81, 82; his conscien- 
tiousness, 82; writes "The 
King's Missive," 83; elected a 
member of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, 83, 176 ; his 
argument about the " King's 
Missive," 84-86; interest in 
labor, 86, 87 ; his position in re- 
gard to strike at Amesbury, 87, 
88 ; addresses poem of indigna- 
tion to Pius IX., 88; interest in 
temperance, 88, 89 ; his attitude 
toward reform, 89, 90 ; supports 
woman suffrage, 91-93; his 
"Massachusetts to Virginia," 
mentioned, 95; compared with 
Garrison, 95, 96 ; his generosity 
96-98; his kindness, 98, 99; 
moral effect of his poems, 99, 
100 ; acquaintance with an Em- 
peror, 100, 101 ; receives many 
letters, 101; his shyness, 102, 
103, 110; his sense of humor, 
103, 104; seriousness of early 
poems, 103; compared with 
Whitman, 106 ; pleasure in 
tending fire, 109; R. S. Ran- 
toul's delineation of, 110; ac- 
quaintance with fellow-authors, 
110-112; his heroes, 112, 113; 
Hayne's poem on r 113, 114; a 
liberal Quaker, 115-117 ; fond- 
ness for Rossetti's ballad of 
"Sister Helen," 117-118; his 
relation to Society of Friends, 
118-124; his interpretation of 
"The Inward Light," 124-126; 
his interest in spiritualism, 126, 
127; his thoughts on spiritual 
subjects, 127, 130; describes 
himself in "My Namesake," 
130, 131; his "My Birthday," 
132-134 ; early sentimentalism, 
135; personal relations with 
women, 136-139 ; his love poe- 
try, 138-149; his "My Play- 



196 



INDEX 



mate," 141, 161; sound effect 
produced in his poetry, 142, 161, 
162; his ''Amy Wentworth," 
142 ; his " The Henchman," 143- 
145; his "The Sisters," 145- 
147; his "Memories," 147-149; 
his prose, 150, 151; compared 
with Burns, 152; D. A. Was- 
son's opinion of, 153, 154; E. C. 
Stedman's opinion of, 154-157 ; 
his " Cassandra South wick," 
155, 157-159 ; little known as to 
origin of poems, 159 ; his anti- 
slavery poetry, 160; his "The 
New Wife and the Old," 161; 
his " Songs of Labor," 162; his 
hymns, 162, 163; his poems of 
the sea, 163; success of his 
poems, 164; his "Mabel Mar- 
tin," 165; defects of execution, 
165, 166; his "The Vaudois 
Teacher," 166-168; his career, 
168; his "Proem," 168, 169; 
words written on death of Long- 
fellow, 169, 170; his health, 
171-174; his "The Opium 
Eater," 175 ; receives honorary 
degree, 176; seventieth birth- 
day celebration, 176-178; his 
summary of Dr. Holmes, 178, 



179; companionship, 179, 180; 
edits volume of Mrs. Child's 
letters, 180; illness and death, 
183; his "At Last," 184, 185; 
his funeral, 185. 

Whittier, Mary, 22, 24. 

Whittier, Ruth Flint, 4. 

Whittier, Thomas, 4, 5. 

Whittier family, 4. 

Wilberforce, W., 33. 

Williams, Roger, 72, 156. 

Wilson, Deborah, 85. 

Wilson, Vice-President Henry, 
127. 

Winsor, Justin, his "Memorial 
History of Boston," men- 
tioned, 83. 

Winthrop, Robert C, 47, 181. 

Winthrop's Journal, cited, 6 n. 

Woman Suffrage Convention, 
91, 92. 

Woodman, Mrs., 180. 

Woolman, John, 49, 51, 123, 124. 

Worcester, Mass., 91, 121. 

Wordsworth, William, 119, 141. 

World's Antislavery Convention, 
the, 77. 

Wright, Carroll D., 87. 

Wright, Elizur, 53. 



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